Pure Dead Magic (9 page)

“Mum …,” warned Pandora.

“Dad?” pleaded Titus. “Dad …”

“Mummy and Daddy need to have a little talk, darlings,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, in an icy voice. “Why don’t you all go upstairs while we sort ourselves out?” She fixed her children with a wide smile. Unfortunately, noted Titus, it wasn’t the kind of smile that reached her eyes.

“Please
don’t argue?” he begged.

“Please
go upstairs. Now. And take the baby,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, standing up and opening the kitchen door
.

In a hush full of unanswered questions, the children trooped out of the kitchen, followed by Marie Bain, who dabbed at her eyes with her apron and sniffed disapprovingly. The sound of their footsteps died away, leaving Signor Strega-Borgia and his wife in silence.

A faraway clock chimed the hour.

“Well …,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, sitting down and examining her fingernails.

“I’d best be off, then,” said her husband, hoping that he didn’t have to go.

“As you wish,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, retrieving her newspaper from the milk pool. Her hands trembled and her eyes filled with tears, but she hid herself behind the soggy newsprint. It was this apparent lack of concern and frosty dismissal that made Signor Strega-Borgia’s mind up.

“Don’t expect me back for supper,” he said, glaring at her bent head. His words failed to penetrate her chilly armor. “Or
tomorrow,”
he added, from the door.

“Bye,” said his wife, from behind the paper where her face was wet with tears. “Lock the gate after you.…”

With a massive attempt at injured dignity, Signor Strega-Borgia walked out on his life, his wife, and his family. And from there on, it had all been downhill.

Somewhere along the road, he’d taken a wrong turn and he hardly recognized his surroundings. Moreover, by then it was way past lunchtime and he was starving. The shoulders of his jacket were soaked, his trousers were splattered with mud, and his stomach growled incessantly.

When the sleek black Mercedes pulled up beside him, his hair was plastered to his skull and he felt he’d sunk as low as it was possible to go. As the passenger door opened, he’d had no idea just how much farther he still had to fall.…

The sound of voices from outside the window dragged him back to the present. In the early morning Italian sunlight, Signor
Strega-Borgia saw Pronto loading a violin case into the trunk of a large black car.

“Don’t worry, Maestro,” Pronto called to someone out of the field of Signor Strega-Borgia’s vision. “It’s time for them to face the music. When I finish, there won’t be a single one left standing.”

Signor Strega-Borgia puzzled over this statement as he helped himself to another cup of coffee. Was Pronto such a talented musician that his performances literally brought the house down? Or was it that his skill with a violin was such that his concert audiences knelt before him in adoration?

Drawing a finger slowly across his throat, Pronto climbed into the rear seat, and the car drew away, its tires crunching gravel and its black windows throwing back a reflection of the blank face of the palazzo. In one of those moments where something clicks and realization dawns, Signor Strega-Borgia suddenly understood. Maybe it had nothing to do with music, he thought as his legs turned to water and his heart leapt free of its moorings and flew into his mouth. Maybe Pronto was on a deadly mission? To StregaSchloss!

Hearing the front door slam and the heavy tread of approaching footsteps, Signor Strega-Borgia drained his coffee cup and picked up the document that lay beside his untouched breakfast. It appeared to be a will. In fact, it appeared to be
his
will. Hardly believing the evidence before his eyes, Signor Strega-Borgia read that as the trustee for his son, Titus, he had decided to make a few changes.… Clutching his throat, Signor Strega-Borgia scanned the document:

After much thought … due to the corrupting influence
of vast sums of money … Titus too young to inherit … I, Luciano Strega-Borgia, being of sound Mind … hereby decree … in the event of my death … going to leave everything I possess to …

“NEVER!” he shouted, just as Don Lucifer’s hairy nostrils appeared, as was their habit, three seconds before the rest of his half brother.

“Never?” queried Don Lucifer, idly tapping the business end of a rather wicked-looking handgun.

“Um, yes, um, I was just saying I’ve never drunk a finer cup of … um, ah …” Luciano’s words trailed off into silence.

The brothers’ eyes met over the handgun. “When you’ve signed that thing,” Don Lucifer remarked in a very matter-of-fact way, “I need you to have a look at my computer. It’s got some kind of virus playing havoc with the mainframe.”

“Lucifer, d’you think I’m a complete pushover? A total jelly that you can just shove around?”

Don Lucifer gazed impassively at his sibling. “Yup,” he said, clicking the gun’s safety catch to the off position, struck by the happy thought that the inhabitants of StregaSchloss would soon be dead, no matter what his jelly of a half brother did. “Don’t be a fool, Luciano. Sign on the dotted line and then get downstairs and sort out my computer problem or, later on today, your precious son will have an unfortunate accident, resulting in his untimely demise. Guaranteed. So do as you’re told, and don’t waste any more of my time.”

It’s only money, Signor Strega-Borgia told himself as he signed away his stamp collection, his bank balance, Titus’s inheritance, and most importantly, StregaSchloss, his home.
The thought of its acute vulnerability to invasion by Mafia thugs caused him to wish he’d installed a slightly more high-tech security system than a dungeonful of mythical beasts.

A vision of his beloved family under threat from a violin-bearing menace caused him to burst into tears. “Don’t hurt them, Lucifer … PLEASE? I’ll do anything, but just leave my family out of this, I beg you, pleeeeease.…” He fell sobbing to the carpet, in the knowledge that he was, indeed, a jelly.

E-rats Redux

L
uciano Strega-Borgia hobbled along the deserted corridors of the palazzo, held at gunpoint by his brother, dimly aware that the floor had been newly polished with something that smelled vaguely of gasoline. Indeed the marble floors shone so much that they were slightly slippery underfoot. Don Lucifer stopped at a little door marked TUG and pushed. Not surprisingly, nothing happened. Don Lucifer clapped himself on the forehead, tugged, and entered.

Despite a total lack of human presence, the room seemed alive. Screens flickered, modems hummed and shrieked their strange peacock call, and the noise of spinning disks and coolant fans merged with excited squeakings and scrapings coming from one corner of the room.

“It’s all yours.” The Don indicated the room at large, and then grabbed Signor Strega-Borgia by the lapels. “And don’t be so stupid as to try and get help. You e-mail the Carabinieri, the
FBI, the CIA, the Gendarmes, any form of police you like, and all the computers will crash instantly. It’s been programmed to alert me if anyone so much as keys in 999. So don’t even
think
about it. No calling for help, or you’re fish food.” He released his quaking half brother and smiled encouragingly. “The virus. The rats. That’s what you’re here for. Get it sorted, Luciano, there’s a good boy.” With this, Don Lucifer turned on his heels and walked out of the room, pushing the door shut behind him.

In a dazed state of obedience, Signor Strega-Borgia sought the source of the squeaking. Pulling up a chair, he sat in front of one screen that appeared to be running a most unusual screen saver. He looked more closely. That wasn’t a screen saver. That was an infestation. Thirteen rat babies looked back at him through the glass. Beside them, a modem lit up and quietly exploded. The screen turned black and smoke began to leak apologetically from its rear.

“We have a problem,” muttered Signor Strega-Borgia, turning to a fresh screen and keying in a set of commands.

>
YOU
…
RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, LAMEBRAIN
< agreed the computer.

/QUERY SOURCE/ typed Signor Strega-Borgia, ignoring the insult.

>>
THAT
…
S FOR ME TO KNOW, AND YOU TO FIND OUT
< said the computer, aggravating things further by adding ten rows of asterisks, this being a computer’s equivalent of sticking its tongue out and yelling Nya Nya, nah NYA NYA.

“So you don’t wish to reveal your source, do you?” muttered Signor Strega-Borgia, and pressed five keys simultaneously.

Immediately the screen went black, and almost immediately
lit back up again. >
NO NEED TO BE QUITE SO BRUTAL
complained the computer, >
VIOLENCE NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING
<

“No,” agreed Signor Strega-Borgia, “but a quick crash and reboot might bring you to your senses.”

He typed /
QUERY SOURCE
/ again.

The computer replied with the equivalent of “Wild Horses Wouldn’t Drag That Information from Me”: >MM
MMMMM
M
MM
< it said.

Signor Strega-Borgia typed /
REBOOT
?
QUERY
?/

>M
MMM
N
YA
P
OO
< replied the computer, adding, >
I
…
LL NEVER REVEAL MY SOURCES, NO MATTER WHAT
. M
MMM
M
MM
<

Signor Strega-Borgia resorted to desperate measures. Opening a bottle of brown fizzy liquid abandoned by a previous operator, he held it over the air vents on the computer.

/
RIGHT
/ he typed. /
COKE IN THE VENTS OR—SOURCE. QUERY
?/

>
YOU NASTY BIG LAMEBRAIN BRUTE
< complained the computer. >
MAY YOUR HARD DISK CEASE TO SPIN, AND ALL YOUR FILES RASP. MAY ALL YOUR CRASHES BE FATAL AND YOUR REBOOTS BE DOC MARTENS …
<

/
SOURCE. QUERY
?
OR ELSE
/ typed Signor Strega-Borgia.

>
OH VERY WELL, BRAWN OVER BRAIN. STREGA-SCHLOSS.CO.UK. HAPPY NOW
?<

“
WHAT
?” screamed Signor Strega-Borgia.

The computer, not possessing a pair of ears, didn’t respond.

/
QUERY. ERROR, SURELY
?/ typed Signor Strega-Borgia, his hands suddenly clammy on the keyboard.

>
NOPE NEGATIVE NIX NOT
!
STREGASCHLOSS.CO.UK IT IS
. M
MMM
M
MMM
< replied the computer, adding two rows of ampersands by way of salt in the wound.

“Titus,” groaned Signor Strega-Borgia, slumping onto the keyboard. “What have you
done?
”

How
had his only son sent an infestation of rats across the Internet and straight into his half brother’s unbelievably complex computer system? And never mind how or even why, judging by Don Lucifer’s threats, Titus could be in extreme danger. Feverishly, his fingers flying over the keys, Signor Strega-Borgia typed out a message.

What? Until what? Until he got home? That was becoming more unlikely by the minute. Signor Strega-Borgia wasn’t coming home, not if his evil half brother had anything to do with it. He began again.

i’ve been kidnapped by a psychopathic relative. don’t worry.

This wasn’t going at all well. He considered getting Titus to phone the police, but he knew that a twelve-year-old trying to tell the local Highland constabulary that he’d just had an e-mail from his estranged father saying that there was an unspecified threat on its way from somewhere unknown was
not
going to bring several officers in blue to the door of StregaSchloss. Plus, as his half brother had been at such pains to point out, if he so much as typed 999, or “police,” the computer would alert Lucifer before it crashed.… Think, man, he beseeched himself. Ah, there it was, the kind of message that would convey the gravity of the situation in a fashion that his son might understand.