Pure Dead Brilliant Part 11

"Dad," t.i.tus said, turning his back on the estate lawyer, "can I have a wee word-just you and me, for a moment?"

Spilt Blood In a fit of rash generosity that she later regretted, Signora Strega-Borgia had given Fiamma a bedroom on the second floor, the walls of which were covered in panels of raw Chinese silk dating back to the P'Ing Imperial Dynasty. Sitting on the bed, her charred high heels digging holes in the coordinated silk quilt, Fiamma lit a tiny black cigar and sank back against the pillows with her cell phone tucked under her chin.

"I need you to look something up for me," she said, tapping ash onto the floor. "It's not available on the Internet, otherwise I'd have done it myself-so don't give me grief about your not being my personal search engine. You have to get up off your scaly haunches and go find the relevant file."

There was a stunned silence from the other end. Then Fiamma was put on hold while the lesser demon applied itself to the task. Minutes ticked by until the bedroom was filled with evil black smoke and Fiamma had ground her cigar out on the bedside kilim.

"So soon?" she hissed, her eyes briefly flashing vermilion. "Took long enough, didn't you? Right. The chapter on Sang di Draco, if you would, with particular reference to the subsection dealing with fluorescence . . ."

There was a shuffling of parchment as, on the other end, the minor demon did as it was bid.

"Right, minion. Tell me if the Pericola d'Illuminem does indeed make dragon's blood glow." Fiamma's voice had dropped to a whisper as she peered at a tiny vial held between her thumb and forefinger. "Perfect," she purred, transferring the vial to the palm of her hand and closing her fingers around it. "I thought it did, but I just wanted to be absolutely sure before I start hurling blood around the place. . . ." A smile played around her mouth, and a small trail of drool crept down her chin. "Catch you later, serf," she added, switching her phone off.

Fiamma stood up, her breathing shaky, her inner agitation making it impossible for her to remain still. I'm almost there, she gloated silently. First the stone, then the souls . . . and then I'm out of here, back home to h.e.l.l. Even if I do say so myself, that was a stroke of utter genius, drawing blood out of that malformed baby dragon. . . .

Before she'd left the Hadean Executive on this particular mission, they had been installing tanning beds for the exclusive use of high-level members who needed regular exposure to ultraviolet light to counteract the effect of spending their entire lives in the sunless depths of h.e.l.l. A colleague of Fiamma's had made the useless discovery that UV light caused dragon's blood to fluoresce-under the ultraviolet rays of a tanning bed the blood glowed deep neon-pink. This information was duly filed and forgotten, and would have been entirely lost to demon-kind were it not for the fact that here, now, Fiamma was about to make demonic history. For the Chronostone emitted a particular wavelength of light that corresponded to ultraviolet on the electromagnetic spectrum.

"All I have to do . . . ," Fiamma whispered to her reflection in the dark gla.s.s of her uncurtained window. "All I have to do to find the Chronostone is sprinkle little drops of dragon's blood around this Scottish mausoleum and wait to see if they glow."

The small matter of dispatching the boy and the baby? A mere bagatelle. Fiamma unstoppered the vial and dipped a tiny gla.s.s rod into the red liquid within. With a flick of her wrist she sent a single drop of Nestor's blood spinning up in the air, and then straight down onto the floor. On contact with the floorboards, the drop exploded into tens of droplets, which arranged themselves in the cla.s.sic spatter pattern beloved of detective fiction. In the gloomy light of the Chinese bedroom, the blood failed to do anything other than soak indelibly into the floorboards. Not in the least discouraged, Fiamma restoppered the vial and tiptoed out into the corridor, pausing at the head of the stairs to repeat the experiment.

It wasn't until she reached the great hall that she struck gold. But by then, it was far too late.

t.i.tus Grown "As your lawyer, I must advise you that what you are doing is . . . foolhardy beyond belief." t.i.tus wrote steadily, ignoring the splutterings coming from behind him.

"Once done, this cannot be undone." The estate lawyer was pale with the effort of making sure that his young client was aware of what he was doing.

"Look," t.i.tus said, waving his father's fountain pen for emphasis, "I don't want any more advice, thank you. Please, could you keep quiet-or I'm going to sign my name wrong. . . ." He bent his head and laboriously scrawled for the fourth time in ten minutes. Silently, t.i.tus pa.s.sed the pen to Luciano, who signed his name under that of his son. In a silence broken only by scratching from the pen nib and loud hissing from a particularly resinous log on the fire, they all became aware of the sound of footsteps approaching from downstairs. An urgent knock was immediately followed by Latch's head appearing round the library door, his words tumbling one over the other in his haste to be understood.

"Sir, you've got a prob- There's a- You've got to come downstairs now, right now, or he's going to-"

"Latch?" Luciano slowly unfolded himself from the woodworm-scarred embrace of his chair. "Latch-you're shaking like a leaf-what's the matter?"

The butler's eyes were wild and his hands trembled as he pointed behind him to the open library door. "Please," he begged, "now. He said if I don't bring you both downstairs immediately he'd-he'd-"

"Who? What? He'll what?" Signor Strega-Borgia was by Latch's side, infected by the butler's state of panic and half-aware of t.i.tus getting up from the desk and moving toward the door in slow motion. A shot rang out from downstairs, and t.i.tus heard the unmistakable sound of Pandora screaming.

The front door stood wide open, and consequently the great hall, like the library, was full of opportunistic insects whose attraction toward warmth and light made them unaware of the present dangers inside StregaSchloss. Fiamma d'Infer lay sprawled across the floor at the foot of the grandfather clock, her hand outstretched toward the shadows beneath it, a large bloodstain evidence of the bullet that had torn through her b.u.t.tock and embedded itself in the wall behind the banister. Regrettably, her chest's slow rise and fall indicated that she was not slain, merely unconscious. Spilling from under the demon's body was a mysterious puddle of neon-pink liquid, which was slowly leaching away into gaps between the flagstones.

t.i.tus took in these details in little memory snapshots-door/ insects/body/clock/luminous pink puddle-automatically recording each image with scant emotion and even less interest. Since hearing the gunshot, he'd entered a nightmarish zone akin to the still center at the eye of a hurricane. He'd run downstairs behind his father, but he'd felt like an automaton, robotic in his utter lack of thought or feeling. All he could hear was his sister's scream. All he could think of was Pandora.

The door to the drawing room stood ajar and now, coming from behind it, they could hear a weird, high-pitched squeaking sound followed by another gunshot.

Left behind in the library with instructions to phone the police, the lawyer discovered that the telephone line into StregaSchloss had been cut. Replacing the dead receiver, he turned to rake through his briefcase, then remembered that he'd left his cell phone in his car.

Perhaps he'd seen too many movies or had failed to realize that, at fifty-eight, deciding to rappel down the south face of StregaSchloss on the end of a moth-eaten damask curtain was a bad idea. Or maybe the sight of the Borgia money going to such an undeserving home had simply robbed the estate lawyer of the will to live. But miraculously, his rappelling suicide attempt didn't kill him. He was just crawling, bleeding, out of the shrubbery-and checking how many bones he'd fractured in his fall from the library window on the second floor-when a bullet turned him into the subject of a fulsome obituary in the following week's Daily Telegraph. Unaware of his posthumous fame, the lawyer spun round once, sank to his knees, and collapsed facedown in a thistle patch.

On the threshold of the drawing room t.i.tus stopped dead, a howl of protest dying in his throat. The smell of explosives a.s.sailed his nostrils as he caught sight of his mother in the grip of a man with a face straight out of a nightmare. Aghast, t.i.tus realized that the object the man was pressing against Baci's throat was a snub-nosed gun. Around her, frozen in place, the faces of her family and guests mirrored the terror Baci felt at being held hostage by this hideously maimed a.s.sailant. Under hissed instructions from Latch, t.i.tus and Luciano restrained themselves from running to Baci's aid. On a sofa in front of a vase full of blood-red roses, Pandora sat trembling next to Mrs. McLachlan, who held Damp in her arms. A muted growling came from all five beasts, miserably aware that they had failed utterly to guard their family from harm.

"L-L-Lucifer?" Signor Strega-Borgia stammered, barely able to recognize his half brother's ruined face. "Is that really you?"

"Eek," came the terse reply, as Lucifer waved his free hand in Latch's direction. With a whispered apology, the butler approached as instructed, producing a notebook and pen which he handed over.

"What happened to your face . . . your voice?" Luciano quavered.

Ignoring this, Lucifer transferred the gun to his left hand and wedged the notebook open between Baci's shoulder blades, holding it in place with his forearm. Not taking his eyes off the others, he scribbled something in the notebook and pa.s.sed it back to Latch.

"He says, Shut up," Latch read, an impatient movement from Lucifer making the butler return the notebook. Lucifer's yellow eyes didn't once drop to the page but maintained their watch on the room as he scrawled out several lines of instructions. Wearily, Latch received the notebook and, holding it at arm's length, read out Lucifer's demands.

"'n.o.body try anything or the Signora gets it. Luciano, get your brat to transfer the money over to me. I'm taking your wife with me as security until the money reaches my bank account. Any tricks and you'll never see her alive again.'" The butler's face was strained with the effort of allowing such words to pa.s.s his lips. From the other side of the room, t.i.tus spoke, his voice ringing out in the silence.

"You're too late, 'Uncle' Lucifer. You've wasted your time coming here tonight. Earlier this evening we wired the money from Grandfather's estate account into yours. We were just completing the paperwork when you . . . interrupted."

Pandora's head jerked upright. t.i.tus had voluntarily given his inheritance to this creep? Uncomprehending, she watched as Lucifer relaxed his grip on Signora Strega-Borgia.

"Phone your bank if you don't believe me," t.i.tus said, adding, "That is, if you haven't already cut the telephone cable into the house."

Still without taking his eyes off anyone, Lucifer produced a cell phone from his breast pocket and pressed a b.u.t.ton on its keypad. His eyes darted from Luciano to t.i.tus, back and forth, recognizing in t.i.tus shades of the little half brother he'd spent his childhood torturing. He squeaked something incomprehensible into his phone, but evidently the voice on the other end was used to dealing with a client who not only acted like a rat but spoke like one, too-for Lucifer fell silent, his face reflecting the discovery that half an hour before his nephew had made him one of the wealthiest men on the planet. His lips curled upward in a hideous rictus as he confirmed that t.i.tus had not lied.

However, if he wasn't mistaken, there was a corpse in the shrubbery outside-and a roomful of witnesses to the fact that he'd murdered an innocent stranger, shot a woman in the hall, and threatened the life of his half brother's wife. With a vicious shove, Lucifer pushed Baci to one side, grabbed the notebook from Latch, and began to write with such force that his pen gouged holes in the paper. He flung the notebook on the floor at the butler's feet, and backed away toward the French windows leading onto the lawn. Latch briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath before reading Lucifer's message.

"He says the money changes nothing. Apparently we're all still dead meat." Latch's voice was utterly flat and devoid of emotion as he read out this death sentence in the silent room, but everyone watching noticed the telltale quivering of the notebook he clutched in his hands. "Apparently," he continued, "while we were dining downstairs, this murderer was crawling around in the attic, wiring up a ma.s.sive incendiary device-"

Ariadne Ventete gave a small squeal and collapsed into a log basket.

Unperturbed, Latch carried on calmly, "-a device that he intends to detonate by keying in three numbers on his cell phone-"

All adult eyes in the room swiveled to where, with gun in one hand and cell phone in the other, Lucifer had almost reached the open windows.

It was at precisely this moment that Damp, impatiently wriggling in Mrs. McLachlan's arms, reached out to grab one of the roses in the vase behind her nanny. Instinctively, Baci made a lunge for her baby daughter and fell on top of Mrs. McLachlan. Damp lost her balance, clutched a particularly thorn-studded rose stem and, shrieking like a banshee, cast the first major spell of her lifetime.

Sleeping Boaty For a split second, Pandora thought she'd been blinded. Being plunged from the fading light of the drawing room into pitch darkness left her completely disoriented, but the voices of her mother and Mrs. McLachlan complaining about the lack of light made her realize that whatever had happened and wherever she was, she wasn't alone.

"Oh lord, what now?" Baci struggled to disentangle herself from Mrs. McLachlan, her hands touching the rea.s.suring soggy diaper of her youngest daughter. "Damp, is that you, darling?"

"Hold on just a wee moment, madam." The nanny's voice was followed by a faint click. Immediately there was light-admittedly only a mere glimmer-but enough for Pandora to see the faces of her mother, Damp, and Mrs. McLachlan, who appeared to be holding her Alarming Clock in both hands. The nanny's eyes twinkled in the glow from the clock face.

"Such a useful clock, this one," she said, stretching out to illuminate the bodies littering the floor around them.

"Oh no!" gasped Signora Strega-Borgia, staring in horror at the still forms of her husband and son, who lay crumpled on the floor.

"They're not dead, madam. They're asleep," Mrs. McLachlan said hastily, patting Baci's arm. "It would appear that your younger daughter has inadvertently cast a spell."

"Sleeping Boaty," Damp agreed, sucking her sore finger as she glared at the vase of blood-red roses. "Nasty yuck flower. Burrrny."

"My younger-? Damp? Are you telling me that Damp did this?" Baci waved a trembling hand at the sleeping bodies littering the drawing room. "How? She's just a baby. Infants aren't supposed to be able to work magic. It takes a real witch like m-m-m-" Baci's voice trailed off as she grasped the significance of Damp's newfound abilities.

"She's a magus," Mrs. McLachlan said sadly, adding, "The poor wee soul."

Baci gasped, but Pandora disregarded this information.

"Yes, but-where are we? What is this? What time . . . ?"

Mrs. McLachlan looked at her wrist.w.a.tch, sighed, and then peered hopefully at the mantelpiece clock. "It's round about half-past eight," she said, frowning at Pandora.

"But it's dark," complained Signora Strega-Borgia.

"That's part of the spell." Mrs. McLachlan stood up with Damp in her arms and pointed to the door. "Come this way, we have work to do."

Pandora and Mrs. McLachlan left Signora Strega-Borgia and Damp in the candlelit nursery, promising to return soon. Damp sat surrounded by picture books, apparently content to be left reading till summoned. Closing the door behind her, the nanny led the way downstairs. Still sprawled across the hall floor, Fiamma d'Infer snored quietly, a trail of drool puddling on the floor near her mouth, like the ant.i.thesis of Sleeping Beauty.

"First things first," Mrs. McLachlan said, returning to the drawing room and picking her way across to the window with the aid of a lit candelabra. The window, like every window and door at StregaSchloss, was now crisscrossed with an impenetrable thicket of briar roses, their wicked thorns forming a barrier to both the pa.s.sage of daylight and human traffic. They were effectively trapped inside the house by Damp's invocation of the Sleeping Beauty spell.

"What time did you say it was?" Pandora said, peering at the girth of one of the briar stems, which was as thick as her wrist.

"If you mean what year did I say it was, I didn't. However, since you ask, the time is now ten to nine, but the year is still 2002," Mrs. McLachlan snapped, her unfriendly tone of voice causing Pandora's self-control to dissolve in a flood of tears.

"You're still a-a-angry at m-m-meeee," she wailed, collapsing abruptly on the sleeping mound of Knot, and noting distractedly that while the yeti was sleeping due to Damp's enchantment, his fur certainly wasn't. It seethed with lice, the infestation apparently immune to the workings of magic. Pandora was too miserable to care.

"Everyone else in this family gets away with murder except me," she howled. "Because of t.i.tus, we've got a psychotic gunman in our midst, Damp gets away with casting spells that plunge us all into some insane version of Sleeping Beauty, but when I allow my rats to go loose and accidentally touch your precious alarm clock . . ." She paused to blow her nose on the slumbering Knot, allowing the yeti's unhygienic arm to flop back onto the floor, as with a deep sniff she continued, "The only one in this whole household who understands me is Tarantella, and she's-she's-" Reminded of the little injured body she'd tucked up in her doll's house, Pandora's face crumpled. This time, however, she found herself wrapped in Mrs. McLachlan's warm arms-held in an embrace within which Pandora realized that she was not only loved, but forgiven.

"Och, pet," the nanny murmured, "I'm far angrier with myself than with you. . . . I should have kept that alarm clock locked up, out of sight. You were just being naturally curious, but I was being utterly stupid." Mrs. McLachlan produced a clean handkerchief from her pocket and pa.s.sed it over.

"But . . . could we use it?" Pandora brightened, suddenly struck with the possibility of helping Tarantella. "Your clock-could we go backward in time? To just before when Tarantella lost her leg? We could stop it from happening-"

Mrs. McLachlan took both of Pandora's hands in hers and drew a deep breath. "Child-you've just demonstrated the colossal danger of using the Alarming Clock. The answer to your question is no. No. Never. We cannot ever change the past, no matter how much we may wish to. We mustn't even allow our thoughts to stray in that direction, especially when we have the means to revisit the past in our possession. Can you understand what a perilous thing this clock is?" Pandora's puzzled expression drove Mrs. McLachlan to continue, "Try and think of it like this: if by using the clock, you could go back in time and undo one of the biggest evils of the past, then where would you start?"

With hardly any hesitation, Pandora plucked an atrocity from her sketchy memory of history lessons. "Um . . . Hiroshima. The atomic bomb. I'd try and undo that one."

"And how would you do that?" Mrs. McLachlan prompted. "Stop the inventor of the atomic bomb from being born? But how would you propose to do that? Cause his mother to have a fatal accident before his birth? Smother him in his crib?"

"NO!" Pandora was outraged. "That would be murder."

"Some would say an insignificant act of murder compared with the destruction wreaked by his invention. Let's try another scenario: perhaps you could sabotage the bomb, cause it to fall harmlessly into the sea instead of in the middle of a j.a.panese city?"

"Yes, that's a much better idea, but-" Pandora hesitated.

"Exactly. But. But, in a few years' time, the people who rely on that sea for their survival would be dying by the thousands, their livelihood contaminated, their unborn children damaged beyond medical repair. And maybe-who knows?-one of those children, but for the bomb that fell in the sea, might have grown up to become the greatest peacemaker in the history of the planet. What appears to be a simple black-and-white puzzle is, in reality, a minefield etched in varying shades of gray. What we would call a moral labyrinth."

"Um . . . ahhh . . ." To Pandora's annoyance, language was deserting her.

"Listen to me, child. The Alarming Clock is not a plaything. It is a powerful and dangerous tool. It was designed to be used for seeing into the future, and thus to return to the present forewarned. That's exactly what you and your brother did-" The nanny held up her hands to forestall Pandora's attempt to deny t.i.tus's involvement. "I know you both used it, and I'm beginning to wonder if it was something that t.i.tus witnessed with the Alarming Clock that caused him to pa.s.s on his inheritance to that thug. A brave attempt to avoid the fate you both foresaw outlined for him. However . . . certain rules of conduct apply to those who use the Alarming Clock, and one of them is always to carry spare batteries."

Pandora looked down at her hands and blushed.

"Another rule," the nanny continued, "is no messing. No tweaking of the past or the future. No minor adjustments. No leaving of litter and no taking of souvenirs. You children have no idea how narrowly you missed destroying everything you love."

"But then why have you-?" Pandora's voice was very small and frightened.

"Why have I got the Alarming Clock?" Mrs. McLachlan stood up and extended a hand to help Pandora to her feet. "I needed something to protect you children from that-fiend." She nodded toward the hallway, where Fiamma d'Infer's slumped body was just visible from the drawing room. "I wanted to borrow a shield, but all I could get was an Alarming Clock."

Pandora's mouth opened, and she managed half a question before a frown from Mrs. McLachlan made her halt in mid-sentence.

"Dear child"-the nanny smiled, shaking her head slowly-"you have the most inquiring mind it has ever been my plea-sure to encounter. Most people sleepwalk through their entire lives, their minds deliberately closed to the millions of possibilities open to them. Your parents and your brother are hardly aware of anything that goes on outside the limits of their own heads. But you and Damp are both explorers, your compa.s.ses permanently fixed on some distant star-your bags packed, and your little boats gently rocking at anchor-ready at any time to set sail for uncharted territories. For now, think of the Alarming Clock and where it came from as places that aren't on a map. You've heard rumors that they exist, but either they're too far away for your little boat to reach, or the seas are too unpredictable. And thus, for now, you have to wait and dream of a day when you find the map, or build a bigger boat-or even come on board with a more experienced navigator."

Gazing into Mrs. McLachlan's shining eyes, Pandora was reminded of the old chart downstairs in the map room, the one hanging over the mantelpiece with illegible writing and "here beye monsteres" written in the fading script of a long-dead ancestor. t.i.tus hadn't given it a second glance, his attention as ever focused on his computer screen in preference to the larger world beyond his eyes. Mrs. McLachlan picked her way around the sleeping witches to the window where Lucifer lay snoring on the polished floorboards. She bent down and removed the cell phone from his unresisting hand. Pandora watched as Mrs. McLachlan stood up, took aim, and hurled the offending object through a gap in the bramble thicket. The phone flew through the air and plunged with a splash into the mud at the bottom of the moat, giving out a small eruption of bubbles that meant its circuitry had been fatally flooded with moat-water.

"There," the nanny said, dusting her hands and turning back to face Pandora. "That should do the trick." She reached under Lucifer and retrieved his handgun, engaging the safety switch before tucking the weapon into the waistband of her skirt.

"Why not just get rid of it?" Pandora asked, then lowered her head into her hands in embarra.s.sment. "There I go again-another question."

"Because it might come in handy when we wake everybody up," Mrs. McLachlan explained, nudging Lucifer with her foot. "This one doesn't understand anything unless it's accompanied by a gun. He's a nuisance, but he's nothing like as dangerous as the demon in the hall. Come on, let's get it over with, shall we?"

Twenty minutes later they emerged, soaked to the skin, from the waters of the moat. Lacking the tools to hack their way through the thorn-studded branches enveloping StregaSchloss, Pandora and Mrs. McLachlan had crawled through the partially flooded tunnels that ran beneath the house like a granite honeycomb, forming a link between the dungeons and the moat. Shivering, they ran across the meadow and halted at the foot of a rowan tree.

"Are you sure this will work?" Pandora peered up at the leafy branches, in some doubt as to whether such a fragile-looking tree could withstand the ferocity of a thwarted demon.

"It's the best I can think of right now." Mrs. McLachlan began to tear rowan branches off the main trunk with an energy that belied her age. "And with a hefty sprinkling of salt, it might afford us some protection."

Carrying Damp, who clutched a dog-eared picture book, Signora Strega-Borgia walked past Fiamma d'Infer with an astounding lack of curiosity as to why the demon resembled nothing so much as an oven-ready turkey. Trussed in a colorful selection of Pandora's tights and scarves, liberally sprinkled with salt, and surrounded by sprigs of greenery, Fiamma looked as if she were lacking only an accompaniment of roast potatoes in order to become the main course of Sunday lunch. Pandora and Mrs. McLachlan followed Baci and Damp into the drawing room, and all four resumed their positions on the sofa in front of the vase of roses.

"Ready?" Mrs. McLachlan paused, smiling broadly at Damp.

"Now what?" Signora Strega-Borgia inquired peevishly, wishing her own magic powers were less ineffectual.

"Now we undo the spell," Mrs. McLachlan replied.

"I'm not exactly like the handsome prince in your picture books," Pandora said apologetically, kneeling down beside t.i.tus and smiling up at Damp. The little girl watched her big sister bend down over her big brother and clapped her hands in delight as Pandora planted a smacking kiss right on t.i.tus's lips. To Mrs. McLachlan's amus.e.m.e.nt, Pandora grimaced, then swiftly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

t.i.tus's eyes flickered as he woke up, peering blearily at his sister. "Eughhh," he remarked pleasantly, rolling over and sitting up. Around him, the waking witches were doing the same, sleepy and bewildered, but immediately snapping back to full consciousness as Lucifer roared in outrage at the thwarting of his plan.

"EEEK SQUEE URK," he bawled, raking through his pockets in disbelief.

"Your phone has gone, Mr. Borgia," Mrs. McLachlan informed him, crossing the room with Lucifer's Beretta held firmly in one hand. "And unless you wish to join it at the bottom of the moat, I suggest you make your farewells and depart."

"Eek?" Lucifer peered at the nanny in some confusion.

"I have your gun here, so don't waste your time looking for it. You've got what you came for, so kindly don't be so ill-mannered as to outstay your welcome-" Mrs. McLachlan's tone was breezy, brushing off the astonished gangster as if he posed no more threat than a housefly.

Lucifer gaped, his little pink eyes narrowing as he processed this information. For the first time in his life, he realized he'd met his equal. s.n.a.t.c.hing his notebook and pen, he rapidly scribbled something, tore the page out, and pa.s.sed it to Mrs. McLachlan. Without a squeak of good-bye, Don Lucifer di S'Embowelli Borgia turned and walked out through the open windows.

In the stunned silence that followed, they could all hear his measured tread fading away down the drive. Pandora bit her lip and tried to restrain herself from asking what he'd written in his note to Mrs. McLachlan. t.i.tus closed his eyes and hoped he hadn't just condemned his uncle to death by pa.s.sing on the inheritance, and Signor Luciano Strega-Borgia gave silent thanks for his family's continued survival.

From the hall came an enraged shriek, as Fiamma found herself trussed like a turkey.

"What on earth?" Luciano's head jerked upward as ear-splitting screams echoed round the hall, accompanied by roars so powerful that the floorboards vibrated. Tendrils of yellow fog began to curl round the door to the hall, and the temperature plummeted within the drawing room. The twilit sky outside the windows turned to night, then day, causing the hands on the mantelpiece clock to describe such a rapid orbit that they glowed red-hot, as Fiamma demonstrated the ease with which she could manipulate time itself. As if to underscore this, the grandfather clock, which had stood ticking erratically in the hall for centuries, exploded in a hail of gla.s.s and wood, its whirling pendulum spinning into the drawing room and missing Damp by a hair. Ffup s.n.a.t.c.hed Nestor up in her arms as howls of demonic laughter echoed around the hall.

t.i.tus paled. He knew that Fiamma was coming for him and Damp. He turned to Mrs. McLachlan and realized with a sickening jolt that she was every bit as petrified as he was.