Pure Dead Brilliant Read online

  “NOT ANOTHER YIN!” it roared, affording Pandora a memorable view of rows of lethal yellow teeth, behind which waved a set of fireproof tonsils. “Youse wee pests must've been breeding like bunnies,” it observed, adding, “I thought I'd got rid of youse dwarves years ago.” The dragon shut its mouth with a clash and glared down at Pandora, its massive wings slowly folding behind its back with a leathery creak. Hissing clouds of steam came from its nostrils as it reached up with one taloned leg to claw at something behind its head—the vast diamond stud in its ear catching the sun and sending a cascade of reflections dancing around the roost.

  “Must be time for a snack,” it remarked, patting its distended belly. “Me, I like mah toast well done, can't abide it raw,” and reaching out to grab Pandora, it demonstrated the ease with which it intended to grill her.

  Without a moment's hesitation, Pandora hammered the knob home. In a blaze of fire she spun through the air until, with a jarring crash, she landed on cold, unforgiving stone. Opening her eyes, the first thing she saw was the alarm clock, which read 16:50. . . . Groaning, she stood up and realized where she was. This is StregaSchloss, she thought. This is my home hundreds of years before I was born. For some unaccountable reason this realization made her feel achingly lonely. I miss my family, she thought, stifling a moan—and trying not to make a sound in case something worse than dragons awaited her. It's like they're dead, she thought, or like I am. Officially, I don't exist. Awash with self-pity, she gazed around. It was indeed StregaSchloss, but a very different StregaSchloss to the one so familiar to her that she could have sleepwalked round it. The first thing she noticed was the lack of light. The reason for this soon became apparent: the windows had shrunk down to narrow little slits glazed with panes of glass of such bottle-bottom thickness as to allow little light to pass through. In the fireplace a half-charred tree trunk had replaced the more familiar oil-filled radiator that routinely warmed the nursery, and on the floor in front of the fireplace an all-too-real bearskin had been substituted for the rag rug that two generations of Strega-Borgias had admired while having their diapers changed.

  The walls were unpainted rough-hewn stone, and the door to the corridor was a substantial chunk of iron-studded raw timber, still oozing sap. The sound of loud voices and heavy footsteps came from nearby, causing Pandora to cast around for somewhere to hide. Unhelpfully, the room was almost empty, save for a large table upon which sat a globe—remarkable only for its wildly inaccurate depiction of all major landmasses—several rolls of paper tied with ribbon and sealed with wax, and a small metal box.

  The door rattled as someone on the other side thrust a key into the lock. Snatching up the alarm clock, Pandora positioned herself behind the door and, squinting in the gloom, began to reset the time. The door swung open and the voices were now distinct. Three men, Pandora guessed, praying that they wouldn't shut the door and discover her cowering behind it, armed with nothing more than a clock. To her relief, she might as well have been invisible for all the attention they paid her. The focus of their intentions was the metal box on the table.

  “The key, Malvolio,” one of the men said, obscuring Pandora's view of the table.

  “I have it here,” said another voice, presumably Malvolio's. “Do you take me for a simpleton?”

  “Use it then, the barbarians are upon us,” said a third voice, gruff and urgent in its delivery. There came a pause, and Pandora bent her head to peer at the numerals on the clock, looking up as the first man spoke, his voice filled with wonder.

  “It is as foretold in the prophecy . . . the Pericola d'Illum-inem . . .” His voice trailed off, replaced by Malvolio's, who murmured, “Some call it the Dragon's Bane, others from across the water tell it as Man's Desire—”

  “Yes, yes, a thousand pretty names,” interrupted the gruff voice, obviously unimpressed by his companions' knowledge. “How came you by this—this jewel, Malvolio?”

  “My grandmother traded it with the dragon-kind.”

  Sneaking a glimpse from behind the door, Pandora saw the three men silhouetted round a source of light far stronger than the feeble rays that shone through the window. She noted irreverently that the men, dressed for battle, were thus wearing enough metal to qualify them for inclusion in a dragon's larder under “canned goods.”

  “Traded it?” laughed the gruff voice, scorn dripping from every syllable. “Pray tell, what could that toothless hag possibly possess to trade for such a treasure?”

  “In truth, certainly not her woman's charms,” muttered the other man, spitting on the floor by way of emphasis.

  “My grandmother,” said Malvolio, with commendable self-restraint, “is a sorceress, and as such has the healing powers. The dragon-guardian of the—the jewel, as you call it, had a baby to fend for, a mate too stricken with melancholy to be able to feed his roost, and, most importantly, a broken wing.”

  “Hence the trade?” said the gruff voice.

  “Indeed. My grandmother healed the dragon's wing with her sorcery, and in return was given the treasure. Which, in her wisdom, she has passed on to me for safekeeping during this troublesome time. . . .”

  Pandora was riveted by this exchange. Malvolio di S'Enchantedino Borgia was one of her earliest ancestors, and the sorceress he referred to could only have been Strega-Nonna—future denizen of the large freezer chest at StregaSchloss, in which she would lie, cryogenically frozen, awaiting advances in medical science. . . .

  There came a repeated booming crash from outside, a noise that resounded through the stone walls and caused the three men to clutch their swords in alarm.

  “The siege is over! Our defenses are breached!” yelled the gruff voice. “We must flee for our lives!”

  “Hold fast,” Malvolio commanded. “We dare not risk being found in possession of the stone—”

  “But, but—if it were to fall into the wrong hands . . .”

  “Perish the thought. We must leave it hidden within these walls and pray that we are spared and might one day return to retrieve it.”

  “But where, Malvolio? Where can you hope to hide a gem more radiant than the sun itself?”

  “In the company of others such as itself,” Malvolio stated obliquely. “In the chandelier above the great hall—come, follow me now.” He spun round to face the door, his face turning ashen as he saw Pandora gazing at him in wide-eyed horror.

  “By all that is holy!” shrieked Malvolio, crossing himself rapidly. “Begone, shade!”

  Pandora didn't hesitate. Bringing her thumb down hard on the knob, she vanished.

  A Death in the Family

  The faraway chink of rattling china and the growing suspicion that he was not alone roused Titus from the worst night's sleep he'd ever endured. Tossed from one nightmare to another, he had spent the hours before dawn clutching his pillow, wide-awake and determined to remain so, lest the dreams return to fill his sleep with their hideous blend of visceral horror and homely domestic detail. Moreover, he was denied the mindless comfort of computer games, ever since his laptop had formed a dark alliance with something so vile that just to think about it brought Titus out in a cold sweat. As the sun had begun its slow ascent over Lochnagargoyle, he had fallen into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep that now, as he unglued his face from the pillow, made him too slow-witted and thickheaded to appreciate the generosity of the gift Pandora was offering him. He struggled to a sitting position, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and yawned widely.

  “'Morning, Titus.” Pandora placed a laden breakfast tray on top of a pile of computer manuals on the bedside table and crossed to the window to fling open the curtains.

  “Urrrrrgh. It's too bright,” Titus moaned, feeling his pupils contract painfully. Pandora ignored this, returning to the bedside to pour a cup of tea and pass it to her brother. “I've made you twelve slices of toast, there's a pile of scrambled eggs in that dish, along with eight slices of dry-cured bacon, two roasted tomatoes, four hot croissants, two of Mrs. McLachlan's raspberry muf
fins, warmed, and some freshly squeezed orange jui—”

  “Whoaaa,” Titus interrupted. “What's going on? Why are you doing this? You never bring me breakfast in bed. Yesterday you treated me like I was something you'd stepped in and now—” He waved his hand over the banquet steaming seductively by his bed.

  “Eat up, Titus, before it gets cold,” Pandora replied mildly.

  “Have you poisoned it? That's why you're so keen, huh? You're hoping to stand there, cackling over my twitching body, and then rush off to inform my lawyers that due to my unforeseen demise, you're next in line to inherit Grandfather's millions . . .” Titus prodded a perfectly grilled piece of bacon with his fork and sighed. He couldn't keep this up. The breakfast smelled like heaven, sunshine poured into his bedroom, and Pandora looked as if she was about to burst with excitement.

  “Paxshhhh?” he mumbled through a mouthful of croissant, spraying his quilt with crumbs.

  “That's why I'm here,” Pandora said. “I wanted to say sorry for being so . . . unhelpful the other day.”

  “Mmmfle,” said Titus indistinctly. “But I was being pretty foul too. Gloating and rubbing it in . . . after I'd stopped trying to tell you about the weird e-mails.”

  Pandora reached out for a slice of toast. Suddenly she was starving. “If I promise to listen properly this time, would you tell me again and in return I'll tell you what I've found in Mrs. McLachlan's bedroom?”

  Titus laid down his fork with a shudder. Since reading the haunted e-mails he had endeavored to put as much distance between them and himself as possible. Attempting to pull down a psychic shutter and forget what he'd seen was proving to be impossible, and last night's nightmares had more than demonstrated the futility of trying to resist. To his embarrassment he realized he'd picked up his fork again and was gripping it like a weapon. Using it to spear a tomato and pop it whole into his mouth, Titus found himself dribbling juice and seeds down his chin as he began explaining what he thought had happened in the map room.

  Ten minutes later they stood shivering in front of Titus's laptop. The map room, untouched since Titus had fled from it the day before, looked so ordinary that for a moment he wondered if he'd dreamt the whole thing. It was cold, but then the subterranean map room was always cold, which was why the family rarely ventured into it, preferring the relative comforts of the library or kitchen or any of the other ninety-four rooms on offer inside StregaSchloss. Here the walls were lined with maps that dated back to times when such charts were drawn and colored by draftsmen whose apparent disdain for measurements, geography, and general accuracy brought a whole new meaning to the phrase “artistic license.” The older maps sought to disguise their inaccuracies with embellishments designed to draw the eye away from their lack of cartographic correctness. Strange sea serpents boiled out of oceans, lochs bore intricate legends of “here beye monsteres,” and round exquisitely limned mountain peaks, dragons flew in tight formations. The most beautiful of these maps hung over the empty fireplace in a massive gilt frame. As family history had it, this had been drawn on vellum by an ancestor whose passionate love of hot-air ballooning explained the relative accuracy of his draftsmanship.

  While Titus attempted to resuscitate his ailing laptop, Pandora peered at the perfect postage-stamp-sized rendering of StregaSchloss and surroundings, noting the presence of a formal garden leading down to what must have been Lochnagargoyle. Unable to make out the tiny words written below those indicating the Kyle of Mhoire Ochone, she turned round just in time to see the laptop spring back to life.

  Titus flinched and turned in his seat to clutch at her arm. “It's still there,” he said, the pitch of his voice betraying the suffocating terror that had overtaken him as the computer rebooted.

  “What does that wee envelopy thing mean?” asked Pandora, adding, “The one that's flashing on and off?”

  “It—it—it's telling me there's more,” groaned Titus. “More mail. Please, Pan, let's go. Leave it. This was a really bad idea. . . .” But even as he spoke his fingers were automatically straying to the mouse pad, and before he could stop himself he'd moved the cursor on top of the envelope icon and pressed ENTER.

  YOU HAVE MAIL

  the dialogue box informed him, this information immediately replaced by another dialogue box stating that the laptop was helpfully downloading not only the incoming mail but also an application that would assist in deciphering it.

  “I feel sick,” whimpered Titus, closing his eyes and trying to stand up.

  “Oh look—isn't that clever, Titus, what's it doing now?” Immune to her brother's feelings of dread, Pandora was glued to the image appearing on the screen. “It's a film clip,” she said, nudging Titus with her elbow. “Move over, I can't see properly.”

  Onscreen a title bar scrolled past with the words “Forthcoming Attractions” in a Gothic font.

  “Wha—?” Titus's mouth fell open as the screen filled with an image at once vaguely familiar but also utterly alien. “The Auchenlochtermuchty cemetery,” he said, his voice flat and colorless. “Like my dream from last night—”

  The title bar vanished, and the sound of tires on gravel filled the map room. Transfixed, Titus watched as onscreen . . .

  . . . a line of black cars drew up at the gates to the Auchenlochtermuchty cemetery and halted, engines idling, while the driver of the first vehicle negotiated with the gatekeeper. Removing his woolly hat, presumably out of respect for the dead, the old man looked up at the darkening sky.

  “It's gaunny chuck it doon,” he observed, throwing his weight against the rusty iron gates, pushing them open with agonizing slowness to the accompaniment of a threnody of squealing metal. This done, he latched them open against stone pillars and stood back, head bowed, allowing the funeral cortege access to the graves.

  “Awfy sad, yon,” he muttered to his shoes. “Poor wee bairns, left withoot a faither . . .”

  “Gosh, Titus,” Pandora breathed. “Aren't computers just amazing?”

  The first car rolled past, bearing its cargo of two funeral directors and their boxed client. In its wake, one of the many wreaths of white lilies piled on top of the coffin bounced out of the hearse and onto the road. The gatekeeper sneezed and casually wiped his nose on his sleeve as the second car edged through the gates.

  Onscreen, the image cut to the interior of this vehicle.

  “Disgusting old man,” muttered a woman sitting in the rear. “Here, give him this, would you?” She produced a tissue from a box on her lap and passed it to the driver. Sitting back in her seat, she glared out of the tinted glass windows at the rows of tombstones that stretched ahead of her up the hill, those farthest away merging with the gloom of a midwinter afternoon sky. Sitting beside her, a younger woman gave a stifled sob and began to weep in earnest.

  “Oh, for heaven's sake, Damp, pull yourself together.”

  “DAMP?” shrieked Pandora, pulling back from the laptop as if it had sprouted fangs. “Then . . . then that old bag must be m-m-meeee.” Stuffing a fist into her mouth, she glared at the screen and muttered, “I can't believe this is really happening, I mean this is just a film, isn't it?” In the absence of a reply from Titus, she fell silent and watched in stunned horror as the film clip rolled on.

  Pandora pulled a handful of tissues from her box and thrust them at her sister. “You'll set us all off, and then the whole day will just turn into one long blub-fest. . . .”

  The sobs redoubled as Damp pressed a soggy wedge of tissue to her face and gave way to grief.

  “Oh, come on,” Pandora insisted. “We have to be strong for Mum. How d'you think she feels? Or Dad?”

  The sobs turned into gasps interspersed with little howls. Pandora tapped the driver's shoulder.

  “Pull over here for a moment, would you?” she said. “My sister needs a minute or two to compose herself.”

  Obediently, the driver parked beside a pitted marble angel whose outstretched hand pointed skyward, either indicating the direction of heaven, or pointi
ng out the fact that it was probably about to start raining.

  Pandora reached across the rear seat and took her sister in her arms. “Hush, now,” she whispered. “Hush, Damp. No more tears. Save them for later. . . .” Pandora lifted Damp's chin and gazed into her sister's red-rimmed eyes. Gently she tucked a stray wisp of hair behind Damp's ear and smiled bravely. “You're a mess, girl,” she said, bending down to look in her handbag. “Let's see if we can do a quick repair-job before Mum sees you.”

  Pandora found a small lipstick and passed it over to Damp along with a tiny mirror. Damp sniffed deeply, rubbed her eyes with a gloved hand, and peered miserably at her reflection.

  “I look like death warmed over,” she remarked, somewhat tactlessly. “Honestly, Pan, I really think that soon—I mean, after all this is over”—she waved a hand in the general direction of the serried ranks of tombstones and then uncapped the lipstick—“once the estate is settled and we find out how much we're going to inherit, I'm definitely going to see that dear wee man in Harley Street about a face-lift–”

  “The plastic surgeon?” Pandora's voice rose to a horrified squeak. “WHAAAAT? But you're, you're only—”

  “Thirty-one,” said Damp, snapping the cap on the lipstick and handing it back to her astonished sister. “Yup. Time flies. Should have had it done when I was twenty-seven, but, hey—it's pointless thinking about the past.”