Pure Dead Magic Read online

  My dear Titus,

  PEACE?

  Please forgive me—the alien idea was pretty sad, I admit. However, it’s not an excuse. I was kidnapped, but by some rather scary gangsters, not aliens, and I’m stuck in a dungeon somewhere in the Italian countryside. Titus, I can’t get home just yet. I’m not sure, but i think one of the gangsters may be on his way to StregaSchloss. Just in case, could you lock all the doors and somehow keep your mother and sisters (and yourself, of course!) in the same room as Ffup, Knot, and Sab. and Tock, too, if you can manage.

  and stay away from the windows.

  call me a paranoid old dad, but until I’m back home to look after you all myself, do me a favor and humor your ancient father, huh? I miss you every day, and love you lots.

  hugs and more hugs,

  Dad

  P.S. Have you worked out how to trash nettlefold yet?

  There … done. He’d struck the right balance between giving a clear warning and not throwing Titus into a terrorstricken panic. And he hadn’t once mentioned police, so his message wouldn’t alert Lucifer’s alarm system. Feeling faintly smug, Signor Strega-Borgia carefully pressed ENT and ER simultaneously, and sent his message winging out across the Web. He sat back in his chair, wiping his streaming face with his sleeve. For some reason, the air conditioning in the computer room appeared to be malfunctioning, but thankfully, the pervasive smell of gasoline-based floor polish had gone.

  Above the smoking remains of Nettlefold, a giant box hung in the sky.

  Titus sniffed as he typed in a message:

  [email protected]

  Dear Dad

  Yeah, right, dad. So it’s gangsters now, not aliens with antennae? have the gangsters got machine guns in violin cases as well? ha-ha. get a life, dad. i’m 12 not 2. and if you think i’m letting Sab, Tock, Ffup, and Knot into my bedroom, you can think again. they’re not toilet-trained yet. Hurry up and come home. We all miss you.

  Lots of love,

  Titus

  p.s. nettlefold is toast.

  It was at this tender moment that Pandora threw open the door to her brother’s bedroom and announced that Titus, too, was going the same way as the computer-generated kingdom of Nettlefold.

  “Titus, you’re toast. You’re history. You’re about to be an ex-Titus …,” she gloated, waving a disposable wand for emphasis.

  “Go away, Pandora,” muttered Titus, his eyes not leaving the screen. “I know where your rats went, and believe me, they’re not coming back.”

  Wearing a brand-new diaper, and modeling a dazzlingly pink pair of overalls, Damp crawled into Titus’s bedroom to check if the face was still hungry. Titus and Pandora were too engrossed in mutual slander to notice her crawling purposefully toward the computer. Damp gazed upward at the CD-ROM drawer in adoration. With an inaudible shriek from the hard disk, Death & Destruction II crashed again, causing the CD drawer to spring open and eject the quarrelsome disk. Damp crawled closer for a good look. At this point, time appeared to speed up and everything began to happen rather quickly.

  Upon hearing the CD-ROM drawer open, and curious as to whether the bacon rinds were still inside, Multitudina made a run for the computer. Behind Titus’s back, Pandora began to draw circles with her wand. Faster and faster until, just before the final thrust, she stepped forward, tripped over the running Multitudina, and aimed her final blast not at Titus but at Damp.

  Titus, fingers poised over the keyboard, about to send his letter to [email protected], gave an enormous sneeze that launched his miniaturized baby sister into orbit. Currently about the size of a small thumbnail, Damp was blown into the open CD drawer and spun upward into the modem.

  As the sneeze left Titus’s nose, his fingers reflexively pressed ENTER. Onscreen a dialogue box informed him: MESSAGES SENT. It was Pandora’s terrible scream that told him what he had really sent.

  Pronto Gets Help

  Flying from Italian sunshine into Scottish drizzle had done nothing to improve Pronto’s mood. Dressed for a kinder climate, he was soaked to the skin by the time he arrived at the dingy dockside offices of the Edinburgh branch of Rent-a-Thug. His shoes squelched, his suit dripped black dye, and his cell phone was suspiciously soggy. Across the desk from him, a fat man in a pinstripe suit rolled his eyes heavenward, and wheezed into a telephone receiver buried under his many chins. “Danny the Fox is doing a six-to-ten stretch, huh? What about Sid the Slash?”

  A polite knock at the door, and the fat man’s secretary poked her head round. “There’s a Mr. Machiavelli from Garrotes R Us in reception for you, boss,” she trilled.

  The fat man gave her the thumbs-up sign.

  “And that consignment of Uzi nine millimeters has just arrived—shall I unpack them now?”

  The fat man nodded and waved her away with an impatient hand. ‘Too bad,” he murmured down the telephone. “He should have stuck to his knives, our Sid. Plastic explosives are such unforgiving stuff.…” He paused and scratched his armpit in a thoughtful kind of way. “So what can you do for me? What’ve you got left? Yeah, I need one more for this very special client.” He grinned an unpleasant gold-capped grin across the desk at Pronto. “Yeah, the usual arrangement, yeah, that’s right. Half up front, the remainder when the job’s done. So … who have you come up with? Attila? Attila what? What sort of a name is that? Hang on, I’ll ask my client.”

  The fat man gagged the telephone with one vast paw and leaned across the desk to Pronto. “My friend says he’s got a real nutter for you. Guy by the name of Attila the Bun.”

  Pronto raised one eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I know, but it gets better. Apparently, he wears a full rabbit suit all the time—hence the nickname, but my friend says he’s one of the best in the business.”

  Pronto raked the fat man with a disbelieving stare.

  The fat man oozed back across the desk and slumped in his chair. “Look, pal, you can take it or leave it. S’up to you. All I know is you want four professional personnel-terminators for a job up in the Highlands, no questions asked, and you want them now, ASAP, pronto, toot sweet.…”

  “How did you get my name?” interrupted Pronto.

  “Look, Toots, or whatever you call yourself, get this—I can’t find you four expert terminators at such short notice. Three I can do, four, no can do. Either you take this Tillybun bloke and we’ve got a deal, or you’re stuck with the three we got.”

  Pronto decided.

  “Right, squire, we’ve got a deal,” said the fat man, retrieving the receiver from his clammy fist and replacing it under his chins. “OK, we cut the rabbit in. Usual place, give my client an hour to find himself a motor. Yeah, yeah, he knows the form. Unmarked bills, in the left luggage at the station. Yeah. You too. Bye.” Sweating copiously, the fat man replaced the receiver and collapsed in his chair. Mopping his face with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, he began to draw a map for Pronto.

  Exactly one hour later, Pronto arrived in a rented van at the agreed rendezvous. Edinburgh was in the grip of festival fever, and the chosen location was thronged with tourists, street performers, jugglers, acrobats, and, regrettably, more than one fully dressed rabbit.

  Pronto had no trouble spotting his three experts. They stood in a group, wearing sunglasses, black suits, and deep scowls. They were far more conspicuous in the crowd of brightly dressed, happy festival-goers than their companion in his rabbit costume. As instructed by the fat man, Pronto stuck his head out of the van window, pretending to ask directions from passersby. “Anyone know where I can find a theater group called Terminator Four?” he yelled.

  Three large guys began to move in his direction. Nearby, a well-dressed rabbit detached himself from an audience of small children and began to hop toward the van. One small boy appeared to be reluctant to say goodbye. He clung determinedly to the rabbit’s leg, his face crumpling with the effort.

  The three large men climbed into the rear of the van, holding the door open for their lopsidedly hopping companion.

&n
bsp; “Get OFF,” the rabbit growled at the leechlike child. “Leggo, or I’ll …”

  Abruptly the child let go before he could complete his threat. The rabbit bounded into the back of the van, slamming the door behind him.

  Across the street, an apprentice piper, in full Highland dress, began to coax the opening bars of “Auld Lang Syne” from his bagpipes. It sounded awful, but it masked the squeal of brakes and the child’s earsplitting wail, “That bunny’s got a GUN!”

  Swerving to overtake a trailer, Pronto shuddered at the memory. In the passenger seat beside him now, the rabbit twiddled dials on the radio, played with the heater controls, and wound the window up and down, all the while keeping up an endless flow of chatter.

  “Know what this motor needs, eh?” he asked of the company in general. “Needs some of them furry dice, dunnit?” he said to no one in particular. “My mate’s motor, now there’s a really cool set of wheels—he’s got the dice, tinted windows, alloy wheels, sound system big enough ter blow the windows out.…”

  “How useful,” muttered Pronto. “No vehicle should be without one.”

  “That’s what I mean,” continued the rabbit. “And he’s got satellite navigation, turbocharged twin-cam fuel-injected whatchamacallits …”

  “Really?” said Pronto, investing that one word with every ounce of sarcasm at his disposal. “And your ‘friend,’ what does he do?”

  “Eh? What d’you mean, ‘what does he do’?”

  “I mean,” said Pronto, speaking very slowly and carefully. “What. Does. He. Do. For. A. Living. Your. Friend?”

  “Uhh. I get your meaning. He doesn’t do nothing for a living. He’s dead.”

  “Oh dear, how sad,” said Pronto insincerely.

  The van began to slow down as they approached a vast rusting bridge. Pronto riffled through his pockets and turned round in his seat. “Look, we have to pay to cross this toll bridge. Has anyone got any change? I only have big notes.”

  “I haven’t any pockets, pal,” said the rabbit, stating the obvious.

  Mutters from the rear of the van told Pronto that, like him, everyone was carrying either credit cards or rolls of big notes.

  “Couldn’t we just drive straight through the barrier?” said the rabbit hopefully.

  “No, we could not,” growled Pronto. “We are trying not to draw any attention to ourselves. Here we are on a clandestine mission to some Highland fortress, intent on rubbing out a boy and anyone else that sees us do it. If we crash through the barrier, chances are we’ll arrive at our destination with a police escort.”

  The van rolled to a halt in front of the toll barrier. Pronto wound down his window and extended his arm with a £100 note at the end of it.

  “Haven’t you got anything smaller?” the toll collector asked in disgust, “I haven’t got change for that.”

  “Tell him to keep the change,” said the rabbit. “And hurry it up, will ya? I need the bog.”

  “Will you shut up and let me deal with this,” hissed Pronto. “He’s hardly likely to forget several men and a rabbit who told him to keep £99.20 change, is he?”

  “I can’t wait much longer,” moaned the rabbit to himself. “You’ve no idea how long it takes to get this rabbit costume undone.… I’m gonna burst.”

  A line of bridge traffic began to form behind the van. The toll collector stuck his head round the door of his booth, the better to address them. “You’ll just have to wait,” he yelled. “Daddy Warbucks here hasn’t anything smaller than a hundred-pound note, and I’ll have to get some more change.” Grumbling to himself, he strolled slowly off in the direction of the other tollbooths, holding the banknote out in front of him as if it was covered in plague bacteria.

  Minutes dragged past. By now, the rabbit was jiggling frantically on his seat, causing the entire van to bounce up and down. “Oh, oh, oh. My bladder can’t cope. I need a pee NOW—ow, ow, ow, it’s like trying to stop Niagara Falls … urrrgh … hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.”

  The toll collector was deep in conversation at a faraway booth where his ancient colleague was slowly counting out £99.20 in pennies. From time to time, they glanced leisurely over to where the van was rocking back and forth, muffled screams coming from its interior.

  To the amusement of the occupants in the long line of waiting cars, the van at the head of the line suddenly stopped bouncing and ejected one of its passengers. What was going on? The ejectee appeared to be attempting to divest himself of a large rabbit suit. He appeared to be in something of a tearing hurry. No? No. The rabbit had changed his mind.

  The rabbit was now waddling back to the van, his furry legs held apart, leaving a trail of wet rabbit footprints on the tarmac behind him.

  The toll collector shuffled back to his booth, effortfully dragging a large canvas bag in which clinked £99.20 in coins. He stuck his head into the van, recoiled abruptly, and said, “Phhwoah. What’s that smell? Did someone die in there while I was off getting your money?” He roared with laughter at his own wit and began to count out Pronto’s change.

  Several miles up the road, they stopped at a service station and bought four cans of air freshener. Several miles after that, they stopped at a pull-off and sprayed the rabbit. Shortly thereafter, the roads narrowed considerably. A series of s-curves and steep dips conspired to make everyone feel very queasy indeed. Everyone, that is, except the rabbit. He was quite happy; his costume had dried off nicely, he’d found an excellent heavy-metal station on the radio, and was rolling the window up and down in time to the beat.

  “OPEN THE WINDOW!” yelled the three men in the back as the van lurched and rolled around another corner.

  Several miles later, they stopped in the middle of nowhere and tied the rabbit to the roof rack.

  A Wee Hot Toddy

  With the feeling that she might have lost several brownie points by tripping up her owner, Multitudina sneaked downstairs, back to the cellar. The smell of defrosted and rotting food had grown stronger since her last visit. A reeking lagoon surrounded the once-glacial freezer. I’m not tempted, Multitudina told herself firmly. Last time I sipped at that particular watering hole, my nose got fried. She gave the lake a wide berth and continued on her travels. Somewhere in this huge house, she thought, her stomach growling, there must be something for a mother-to-be to eat.

  The rain had finally stopped, and weak sunshine trickled in through the kitchen windows. Mrs. McLachlan glared at Sab, Ffup, and Knot, who huddled round the kitchen table.

  “There were four left,” she said, tapping the muffin tray for emphasis. “And now there are none.”

  The beasts sighed sympathetically.

  “I turned my back on them for one minute,” she continued, “one minute while I heated up a wee hot toddy for the Signora, and when I turned round …”

  Sab licked his lips nervously. Ffup stifled a belch with one leathery wing. Mrs. McLachlan stared at them. Knot lolloped out of the kitchen, leaving a half-eaten bunny slipper on the chair behind him.

  “Did he do it?” demanded Mrs. McLachlan. “All four raspberry muffins? What a pig. After that enormous dinner he ate last night.”

  “Blaark,” said Sab, holding his feathery stomach.

  “Don’t feel well,” groaned Ffup, clutching his scaly one.

  Mrs. McLachlan opened the door to the kitchen garden. “Not on the herbs,” she warned as Sab and Ffup bolted past her. “Oh well … never mind, they’ll wash.”

  Five minutes later, they returned, both looking rather pale and ill. “Must have been the smocked hiccup,” whispered Ffup, wincing at the memory.

  “Now I know why they’re called Brussels splats,” added Sab darkly.

  Signora Strega-Borgia huddled under her bedcovers, a trail of tissues leading from the bathroom to her pillow. A fit of sneezing had left her as limp as an overcooked haddock, her throat felt as if she’d eaten a bowl of razor blades, and her nose ran like an Olympic athlete.

  There was a discreet tap at the bedroom do
or, and Mrs. McLachlan breezed in, bearing a little tray on which something steamed. “Good morning, dear,” she said, setting the tray down on a squelching pile of used tissues. “I’ve brought you a Morangie-Fiddach special. Three spoonfuls of heather honey, the juice of a lemon, both warmed together with three cloves, a cinnamon stick, and a blade of mace … oh, and did I mention? Three glasses of the finest whisky.”

  She watched in approval as Signora Strega-Borgia drained the mug in several swallows. “Nnngg,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, as her eyes crossed and perspiration broke out on her forehead.

  Mrs. McLachlan plumped pillows, smoothed the quilt, and tucked her employer in. “S’got,” slurred Signora Strega-Borgia, flapping a hand at the empty mug, “s’got a kick like a mule … jusht closhe m’eyes forra bit.…” She slumped deeper into the pillows and began to snore.

  Mrs. McLachlan drew the curtains shut, piled the tray with soggy tissues, and tiptoed out of the room. “Is the wee one with you, Titus?” she called, heading downstairs.

  Titus opened his bedroom door just enough to poke his head round. “She’s playing in the computer,” he said truthfully.

  Satisfied, Mrs. McLachlan descended to the kitchen.

  Arachnids with Attitude

  Titus closed his bedroom door and turned the key in the lock. Across the room, Pandora chewed her fingernails and stifled a sob.

  “What are we going to do, Titus? How do we get Damp back?”

  “We can’t,” Titus said baldly.

  “We must be able to,” wailed Pandora.

  “It’s like posting a letter,” explained Titus. “Once you’ve sent something, you can’t stick your hand into a postbox and pull it back out.…”

  “You can wait till the postman unlocks the postbox, and ask him to fish your letter out.…”

  “It’s not the same thing,” said Titus, running his hands through his hair. “We have to find out where she’s gone, what address she’s gone to, and then ask them to send her back.”