It did. The smaller of the two men visibly started on seeing Harriet, and the larger one just gazed at her chin, mouth hanging open like the slack jaw of a dead fish. “Mr. Romanoff will see you in the library,” she murmured. “Right this way.”
There was a roaring fire in the grate, courtesy of Boo, Sue and Lou, and Viktor stood leaning proprietarily on the mantelpiece, impeccably dressed in a smoking jacket over satin evening pants. What century is this guy from, Hugo wondered. Instead, he said, “You’re Mr. Romanoff? Mr. Viktor Romanoff?” Viktor inclined his head in stately acknowledgement, and Hugo went on. “We were led to believe you were somewhat older. But perhaps you are Mr. Romanoff Junior?” Viktor made no movement to confirm or deny this, so Hugo continued, introducing himself, and the big man, who he described as his colleague, Big Jim. “Now, you are aware of our reasons for visiting you. To whit, you are trespassing on the private property of Mr. Trevor Romanoff, and are required to vacate the premises immediately. Our client is a very busy man, as am I, as is Big Jim. We don’t appreciate being mucked around.”
“No,” said Viktor.
“No?” said Hugo, through gritted teeth. “No, what?”
“No, we won’t be leaving these premises now, or at any time in the future.”
Hugo’s teeth were now grinding together. “Is that so? Well, I needn’t remind you that we have the law on our side. However…” and here he paused to look significantly at his as-yet silent colleague, “…however, the law takes time. And our client is prepared, if necessary, to work outside the law.” He nodded at Jim, and this time the big man nodded back and left the room.
Viktor started forward, but Hugo stepped into his path. “Relax, Mr. Romanoff. Jim’s just gone to check on that… lovely… housekeeper of yours. It’s just you and her, right?” Hugo’s tone was suddenly so menacing, that Viktor felt himself respond at once, his canine fangs lengthening and thickening with the surge of adrenalin. He wanted to bite this man, pin him down and drain the very lifeblood from his veins. Breathing deeply, he fought to control the urge, and felt it recede. This man was not the dangerous one. For a moment, he wondered if it was too early to show their hands, but then he figured, why not? It was going to happen sooner or later. And with that, he dematerialised into a million tiny particles of mist, and propelled himself out through the door, in search of Big Jim, while Hugo stood at the fireplace, gaping in disbelief.
The problem with travelling as a million tiny particles of mist, is that you can’t see where you are going. Viktor couldn’t simply drift through the castle, looking out for where Big Jim had gone to. He had to make a choice, and so decided to re-materialise out in the grand entranceway. When he attained solid form, he saw at once that the man was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly there was a loud, angry shout, followed by a gunshot from the kitchen. Viktor ran to the room, and pulled up sharply. A strange picture presented itself. The large man had his left arm around Callie’s neck, holding onto her tightly, and in his right hand was a gun, pointed at her head. Callie was glaring malevolently, and Viktor wondered why she hadn’t simply turned the man to stone before he had caught her up. Then he saw the snakes on her head writhing and squirming as they fed on Callie’s rage, and realised that the helmet-like beads covering their heads had blinded them of their powers. A shame. This evil man would have made a great statue for the centre of the hedge maze.
Skully was standing to one side, brandishing a saucepan, and making what he called his ‘scary ooga-booga face’ with jaw snapping up and down and glass eyes spinning in their sockets. The man was staring at Skully, face bleached white with terror. “Stay back!” he yelled, his whole body shaking, as he tightened his hold on Callie still further. He didn’t look stable and Viktor feared for Callie’s life. He briefly considered dissolving into mist again and reappearing close enough to snatch away the gun, but this would require precision and speed, and he couldn’t risk failing. The ghostly sisters could probably do it – they could possess the gun, or at least the bullets – but where were they?
Still considering what to do, Viktor became aware of a low growling sound. It made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He pivoted ever so slowly on one foot, and caught sight of a wolf crouched behind the kitchen door. Its rough blonde fur stood out in tufts, hackles quivering, and its jaws dripped saliva onto the kitchen floor. Harriet’s green eyes burned out from its face. His brow wrinkled momentarily. He was sure it wasn’t a full moon for another week or so. Then he remembered Harriet having once told him that times of great stress or threat also induced the change. He looked from the wolf to the man, and back again. The man was still focussed on the skeletal form of Skully, but Viktor was certain that the greater danger was from Harriet. He hoped she wouldn’t do anything rash. As he was about to speak in hypnotic tones to the man, to try to induce the thrall, she suddenly sprang, snapping and snarling, going for the gun hand.
The man’s reflexes were fast. In a blur, he brought the gun down and around, firing at the wolf. Harriet fell out of the air and crumpled on a heap on the floor. Immediately, a large pool of bright red blood blossomed around her. The man returned his gun to Callie’s temple, then kicked the shaggy body at his feet. He glanced back at Skully, and in the instant he was distracted, Viktor turned to mist and poured out of the kitchen. He appeared again in the entranceway. “Boo, Sue, Lou!” he hollered. At once the three sisters materialised. “Boo, Harriet’s in the kitchen. She’s been shot. Get Ankh. Sue, there’s a man in the library, or at least there was. Short man, flashy suit. Find him and prevent him from going anywhere. Throw whatever it takes. Lou, there’s a big man with a gun. I need you to knock it out of his hands, but only when you’ve a clear chance. He’s fast, and we can’t risk Callie.” Alarmed, the sisters began to twitter to each other, and so Viktor roared. “GO NOW!”
Viktor had never raised his voice before, so the sisters went. There was another horrible gunshot, and then the big man came out into the entranceway, pulling Callie along with him. He saw Viktor and his eyes gleamed with malice. “No good thinking you could scare me with that fake skeleton. Didn’t know I had a gun, did you? Well, I shot it, and nothing happened. And your dog was pretty useless too. Now, I just heard you talking to someone, so I want you to answer me, and make it snappy, or Beadilocks here gets a drastic new hairdo.” He gestured with the gun, so that Viktor got the message. “How many people in the castle?”
Viktor cleared his throat. “Just me, and my housekeeper who you met before, and the girl you’re holding now.”
“She your girlfriend?” the man asked. Not waiting for an answer, he went on, “Call the housekeeper. I want everyone where I can see them. And no tricks.” Viktor could tell that Lou was hovering behind the man’s head, but he wasn’t giving her any opportunities to take the gun. Viktor thought frantically. He had an idea, but would it make a bad situation worse? No, hopefully it would distract this man long enough for Lou to make her move.
“Alright,” Viktor said. “I’ll call my housekeeper. Her name’s Norma.” Then he began to shout. “Norm-a! Norm-a! Come here please, I need your help with something.” There was silence for a moment, and then they all heard the sound of footsteps in the passageway. The man visibly relaxed. That is, until he saw Norm come lumbering into the room.
“Daaaa,” said Norm. “Why’d you call me Norma?”
Again, the man was quick. He pointed the gun at Norm and fired one, two, three shots. They sunk into Norm’s chest, thunk, thunk, thunk. Then Lou whisked the gun from his hand. It spiralled up into the air, sailed across the entranceway and landed gently in Viktor’s open palm. At this point, Ankh came sprinting down the main stairs, closely followed by Barbara Yaga, and they raced into the kitchen. Blake appeared too, standing dripping in the entranceway.
The big man released Callie, and began to back away from the seven-foot-tall green zombie-creature and the weird-looking pale blue aquaman. Callie immediately began to yank the beads off of her snakes, releasing the furio
us little creatures. “No, Callie!” Viktor said.
“He shot Harriet!” Callie wailed, flinging the beads away. Lou took charge of the situation, scooping up the beads, and whizzing around Callie’s head, re-attaching them to the snakes faster than Callie could remove them.
The big man was still backing away from the crazy scene, when suddenly, Norm cried out, “No! You’re going to step on him!” Leaping with amazing speed, agility and grace, he slammed into the man, and brought him crashing to the ground, where his head cracked against the flagstones, knocking him unconscious.
Callie stopped trying to free her snakes. They would be useless now. She fumed, swatting the air, trying in vain to brush Lou away. Lou calmly replaced the remaining beads, told Viktor she was off to see if Sue needed help, and vanished. Callie’s eyes suddenly widened. “Harriet!” she said, and raced off to the kitchen.
Viktor suggested that Blake find a rope so the man could be secured, then turned to Norm, and regarded him, eyebrows raised in a question. Norm bent down and scooped something up off the floor. “The man was going to step on him,” he explained. Gently, he opened his massive hand, and held it out for Viktor to see. A tiny figure in bandages looked back at Viktor, and said, “Squeak!”
Chapter Eight
Harriet woke a few hours later tucked up in bed, in her own bedroom high atop one of the castle’s six towers. She was in her human form too, which was good, she realised, once she’d unpeeled metres and metres of bandages from her arm and examined the wound. It had been expertly stitched up by Ankh. In her dog form she wouldn’t be able to resist picking at the stitches, she knew. They might even have had to put a cone collar around her neck. She grimaced at the thought. Although the stitches looked good, there was a nasty smelling yellowish paste covering the bullet-hole, which she resolved to wash off as soon as she could.
Boo materialised. “Oh good, you’re awake.”
“Have you been floating up there, watching me?”
“Just popping in and out to check on you. Are you up to seeing visitors?”
Harriet nodded, Boo opened the door, and a crowd came flooding in. They squashed around her four-poster bed, all talking at once. Harriet held up the hand of her good arm. “One at a time, please.”
“I will go first,” Ankh said, stuffily. “For a start, I will need to re-bandage that arm!” He began to wind the crepe efficiently around her wounded limb. “The bullet penetrated your bicep and lodged in your humerus bone. Sue was able to take possession of the bullet and withdraw it along the entrance-path, minimising further damage. I was able to stitch the wound closed and we applied a healing unguent composed of ground-up scorpion abdomens. Barbara transported the scorpions here from Egypt, using a matter-transference spell, and Skully ground up the abdomens using…ahem… his teeth.” Harriet tried not to wince, as Ankh continued. “You then needed a blood transfusion. Luckily, Viktor is a universal donor… for obvious reasons. He gave you a couple of pints, and so here you are.”
“I have Viktor’s blood in me?” Harriet sat up abruptly, and sought out Viktor’s face. “Does that mean…”
Viktor cut her off. “No. It doesn’t work that way on werewolves.”
Harriet sank back down into the pillows, relieved that she had not been turned into a vampire. Her one curse was bad enough. She didn’t think she could face keeping to shadows and never basking in the sunlight again.
Now the others all began to speak again. Suddenly, she realised that someone was missing. “Where’s Norm?” she cried out.
Blake chuckled. “He’s on guard duty. I’ll go relieve him in a minute, and send him up. He wanted to show you his gunshot wounds. He says he’s got three, and you’ve only got one!”
“Hey, I got one too,” Skully said. He pointed, and Harriet could see where one of his ribs had been splintered away. “I’d better go file down the sharp edges,” he added. “Good to see you’re okay. Extra special dinner for my best girl tonight!” Then he left the room.
One by one, Blake, Viktor, Boo, Sue, Lou, Barbara and Callie gave her their best wishes and departed. Ankh fiddled with her arm for a while longer, and then he too was gone. Norm popped in, carrying a small, scrawny bundle of wild daisies, which he had picked himself. He showed her his wounds, which were circular holes surrounded by ragged flesh, but no blood. Technically, Norm’s torso had died centuries ago, so Harriet figured this was why it hadn’t bled. Looking closer still, she could see the ends of the bullets, embedded in the flesh. She told Norm, and he was pleased, determined to leave them there as a souvenir. Finally, Norm left too, and Harriet was alone with her thoughts.
In the gathering darkness, she began softly to cry. How wonderful it is to have a home. A place I belong. Friends.
#
Once more, Viktor looked around the table at the assembled residents. He saw in their faces a mixture of anxiety and triumph. It had been an odd day. Things had gotten out of hand. For a start, Viktor had seriously underestimated their visitors. He hadn’t expected them to be carrying weapons. Viktor had been a fencer, many centuries ago. He knew about blades and had been forced by circumstance to learn about wooden stakes, but he didn’t have much experience with firearms, and in truth, they frightened him. If the bullets that had struck Harriet had been silver… Viktor shuddered at the thought. Letting Jim leave the room had been a near-fatal mistake. Viktor knew they were lucky that everything had worked out as well as it had.
That afternoon, after ensuring that Ankh had Harriet’s care well in hand, Viktor had returned to the library. There, he had found Hugo turned turtle on the floor, hands over his head protecting his skull. Books surrounded him, splayed open, spines bent out of shape. This had annoyed Viktor slightly, but then again, he had said “throw anything.” Lou and Sue were still occasionally firing a volume Hugo’s way, just to keep his head down, but Viktor could tell they were getting bored. “Thank you, ladies,” he had said to them. “You can go now if you would like to. I’ll take over.”
“Throw the book at him!” Sue had said. The two elderly ghosts had giggled, and left.
“You can get up now, Mr. Dixon,” Viktor had said next, and Hugo had climbed to his feet. He had begun to bluster about ill-treatment, but Viktor cut him off. “Your colleague has shot a member of my staff, and threatened others. He has been… subdued. Now, I needn’t remind you that we have the law on our side. However…” and here he had paused to smile menacingly at Hugo, allowing his canine teeth to visibly lengthen and thicken, “…however, the law takes time. And we are prepared, if necessary, to work outside the law.” Hearing his words thrown back at him, the blood had drained from Hugo’s face.
So now, both intruders were safely manacled in the dungeon, and the residents had to decide what to do with them. Callie was still fuming about not being allowed to turn Jim to stone. Viktor patiently explained that this was not an option. “Callie, you could easily petrify them. Norm could tear them limb from limb – and so could Harriet in a few days. I could drain their life’s blood away in a flash. Blake could drown them, I’ve no doubt, and there are probably spells and curses Barbara and Ankh could throw at them too. All of us are dangerous one way or another but… what is it Skully?”
Skully had been waving one arm frantically in the air. He had actually detached this arm at the elbow joint and was holding it in his other hand and waving it well above his head. It was very distracting. “What about me?”
Viktor frowned. “What about you?”
“I could do something too! Maybe I could poison them?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we could do all those things, but that’s not what we’re about. Every one of us has turned his or her back on such a way of life. Each of us has been persecuted in some way because we have been perceived as a threat, or as something too terrible even to look at. Well, I’m not going back to my old ways. I made a promise to myself, and I know most of you have too.”
“So what are we going to do?”
Harriet said from the doorway.
Ankh stood up. “You are going back to bed for a start.”
Harriet shook her head. “No, I’m a part of this too. Viktor, you mentioned spells and curses. Is that an option? Make them forget they were ever here?”
Viktor turned to Barbara. Barbara pulled two dried chicken feet out of her pocket and threw them on the table. One of them landed claws up, the other claws down. “Auspices look poor,” she said.
Viktor nodded. “I think it’s the same as when I try to cast a thrall on someone. These men have had such an emotional experience, it will be too hard to suppress for any length of time. Besides which, if we send them away with gaps in their memories, they’ll just come back, or someone else will.”
“A bribe?” Blake suggested.
Harriet shook her head again. “The coffers are running pretty low. And I suspect Trevor Romanoff can afford to outbid us.”
Blake thought a moment. “A threat then. I’m sure we can make that stick.”
“Agreed,” Viktor said.
And so it was that Hugo and Jim, the latter’s head smeared with ground scorpion abdomens and tightly bandaged, were set adrift in the dinghy, and warned never to return. Several hours in the dungeon being frightened by Norm, Blake, Skully and the sisters, all working in shifts, had knocked the confidence out of them. A final chat with Viktor had sealed the deal. They had sworn to return to the mainland and not discuss the castle residents with anyone. Hugo would report to Trevor Romanoff that the castle was absolutely worthless. And if they deviated from this plan in any way, they would be hunted down, and brought back to the castle to live out their lives in the dungeon.
Blake followed them at a distance, watching as they clambered ashore, climbed into their fancy car, and drove off. The pair were also keenly watched by the local residents, who immediately began to mutter to each other, looking suspiciously out across the sea to the castle. One of them spotted Blake bobbing in the water, and spat on the street. Blake took up the dinghy’s rope and swam slowly back home.