“I use the term lightly, mistress Alice.” said the man and the woman cackled just as a thick swarm of bees appeared from the side of the cliff and made, well, a bee-line for him. “The cushion had very little to do with me at all!” shouted Romney, but it was of no use. The bees settled on the bonnet of the car and began to watch him very closely.
“I saw him first, Mother Alice!” shouted a voice from the clifftop as a man dressed in what appeared to be a worn leather overall peered over the edge. “As sure as I am the Chief Exorcist Demon Hunter of Ponty Bodkin and the environs thereon, then that demon is mine!”
“Is there anyone else?” asked Romney in exasperation. “Neasden ladies jam club or the Sefton Barking choristers? Perhaps a visiting ecclesiastical jigsaw piecing club? Have I missed anyone?
As if in response to his exclamation over the edge of the cliff peeped a small skeleton that raised a fist to him angrily, followed by the appearance of appeared to be an incredibly enraged rabbit and a goat that had a simple look about it as if it was just pleased to actually be there in the first place.
“Dear God.” said Romney in resignation, “I really do wish that I had not been told to take a day off!”
“Well you are lucky that you have me to thank for ensuring that Clwyd here didn’t shriven you straight away.” said Alice, “Though I suspect that he may still have intentions to do so. I wouldn’t give him that necklace back any time soon if I were you!”
“I have no intention of doing so.” said Romney from where he was dangling from the steam wagon, “In fact, let’s get it out shall we?” Romney reached into his pocket and as Evans watched in disbelief her threw it away, the necklace plummeting down into the sea. It hit the water and was gone.
“No!” shouted Evans, “That has been in the fraternity of demon hunting since time immemorial!” he said.
“Clwyd listen to reason!” shouted Alice, ‘Demon hunting is over. Finished. It is actually illegal to do so now. You must let it go!”
“Let it go?” said Evans, doubt in his mind.
“Let it go.” said Alice, “You can’t hold it back any more.”
“Let it go.” said Clwyd and with a snarl he stood up and walked to the back of the vehicle. His legs were stiff and he walked slowly as if frozen, but his rage animated him, giving him strength he did not know he had. “Well let’s see how our friend here copes with plunging over the edge of a cliff shall we?” and with a grunt he placed his back to the rear bumper of the steam wagon and digging his heels into the grass began to push.
“Come and help me!” he called but the villagers from Ponty Bodkin stood about looking at him as if dazed. Nobody made any attempt to help him at all.
The steam wagon creaked though and moved forward an inch or so, Romney dangling in mid air feeling his stomach lurch a he dropped a foot or so, his braces twanging as he hung there.
Alice flew over the wagon and over Fanelda who was watching Clwyd as if deciding what to do.
“Desist, Evans!” called Alice, “Pushing this over the cliff will achieve absolutely nothing!”
“Well we shall see, won’t we?” said Evans, doubling his efforts. The car made a crunching sound and moved forward another inch.
“Do something!” shouted Romney, “Somebody stop the lunatic from…”
Romney stopped in mid shout as the air just above him rippled, light bursting forward in a circular pattern, almost as if a door was opening. There was a loud tut and through the explosion of light appeared Viktor, hovering in mid-air. He looked at the wagon hanging over the cliff and tutted as he saw Romney hanging below it.
“Twelve hours you have off.” he tutted, “And look vot happens.”
“Vamp…!” shouted Clwyd Evans who had come around to the cliff edge to see what all the fuss was. Viktor snapped his fingers at the demon hunter and his voice was extinguished instantly.
“Zat vill be quite enough of zat.” said Viktor angrily, and he floated nearer to the wagon and pushed it back onto the cliff, Romney being dragged by his braces across the grass as he did so. “Such rudeness. Votever happened to keeping ze velcome in ze ‘illside ven, eh?”
Eventually he came to a stop, the wagon now safe and a good twenty feet away from the edge. Viktor looked down a Romney and tutted again.
Please please sort zose braces out.” he sniffed, “You look like ze dog on a leash.”
Viktor gave them all his best disappointed look as he descended onto the top of the steam wagon. The bees had already left the minute he appeared followed closely by the fox and the goat, and already several of the villagers were beginning to make their way home. Even the skeleton had made a hasty exit once he saw Viktor. Graveyard tombs were expensive real estate he knew and he didn’t want the man with the big teeth and funny accent getting any odd ideas about his tomb.
There were still a good few stragglers though, and Alice and Cat stood watching him as Clwyd Evans stood fuming, looking at the butler with rage in his eyes.
“You know vot?” said Viktor, “Seven hundred and twenty-seven years old I am and you humans never fail to disappoint me. Alvays the first at ze front of the queue if there is ze midnight march with ze torches or a castle to burn. You are all so very typical.”
He motioned Romney to get back onto the wagon and he did so, sitting beside Fanelda, both of them watching the vampire give Clwyd and the villagers and quite possibly Alice a damned good telling off.
“Vell I for one am sick of it.” he continued.
“yo' geet fo' dat shit, my main homie!” shouted Cat and Viktor gave him a slight pleased nod.
“Go back to your homes! Ze show is over. I vill take zese naughty pair home and set them to cleaning ze brasses or mopping ze kitchen. Zat they vill be punished you can have no doubt!”
Alice smiled as she realised that Viktor was going to take them out of harm's way, but Clwyd appeared to be incandescent with rage.
“I will see the scum of Satan’s arse be cast down into the pit and rendered from limb to limb and ore into little pieces and fed to the flames over and over again for all eternity, screaming in agony and fear forever as I cast them down!”
“Vel I may make zem dust too possibly.” said Viktor and the air rippled again, a large circle forming in the air over the cliff edge. Viktor nodded to Romney and the wagon accelerated forward, hitting the strange circle in the air and it disappeared. The air rippled one more time and then snapped shut, disappearing completely.
“Bugger.” said Clwyd Evans as Alice smiled and Cat shook its head, anticipating the fish that was promised for later.
“Bugger.” said Evans one more time and turning, began the long, slow walk back to Ponty Bodkin.
“Could someone go on ahead and see if they can find Jones the wheelbarrow?” he called after the departing villagers but they ignored him, even Alice rising high into the air and then returning home. She for one had suffered more than enough of him for one day and decided to stop helping and to leave him to it, wheelbarrow or not.
***
Mister Boot sat at the table not moving. Viktor had disappeared into thin air a little while ago but he sat and waited. There was a sudden loud pop in the air and as he was facing a side window that looked out over the drive he was surprised to see a small open top steam wagon scream into view from nowhere. A man at the wheel was pulling madly at what must have been the brakes but it hardly made any difference at all.
“OOOOOO!” screamed the man but still the wagon shot up the drive like a speeding arrow.
“Urgh.” said Mister Boot as the steam wagon hit the drive at high speed, skidding along the gravel before finally slewing sideways and off into a small drainage ditch that ran along the edge of the drive. There was a loud bang and Viktor floated into the air and landed on the drive completely unscathed. Behind him however a man and a woman could be seen climbing out of the ditch, covered from head to toe in mud.
“You can clean zat up out here!” Mister Boot heard him shout, “You are not
bringing zis mud into ze house!”
The man stumbled onto the drive and fell over a lawn edging he did not see, the woman stumbling over him and then rising again, pulling the man to his feet. The woman was laughing madly but the man looked completely distraught.
“Urgh.” said Mister Boot in a surprisingly amused tone, and then just because nobody was watching he added, “Blurgh.” for effect.
***
Victoria rose from the cradle, her systems coming online as she did so. She was instantly fully awake and sat up. She felt refreshed as if she had slept for a very long time, and her systems as she ran a few rudimentary diagnostic checks all seemed to be working very well indeed. She smiled. Romney had certainly done a good job. She looked about the dark room, her night vision activating on its own. Strange. He was not here.
“Where are you?” she said in her head.
“Living room.” He replied straight away, “It wasn’t my fault.”
“What wasn’t your fault?” she laughed, lowering her legs from the cradle and sliding sideways stood up.
“You’ll see.” he said mysteriously and she walked across the basement and made her way to the stairs.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“We are having a sing song.” said Romney and she chuckled.
“You are having a what?”
“A sing song. It was Viktor’s idea.”
She climbed the stairs and as she opened the door into the corridor she could hear a fine deep voice from the direction of the living room. It seemed to be marking a rhythm.
“Chuck chuck a chuck chuck a chuck a chuck a chuck” sang the voice and then began again from the start as another voice sang an octave above it.
‘You are not for the leaving, not ze leaving kind.” sang Viktor, his accent obvious but still a good voice. Singing along in a slightly rough harmony was Romney accompanied by a woman’s high voice, no doubt Fanelda, Victoria thought.
She crept to the door and opened it as quietly. Romney was corporeal she noted, and surprisingly so was Fanelda. They both appeared to be nursing what were relatively large glasses of red wine. Viktor was standing in the centre of the room, a glass in one hand, conducting them all with his other hand. In a chair around the table sat one of the largest men she had ever seen, and it was him that was half singing, half speaking the rhythm below the song.
“Chuck chuck a chuck chuck a chuck a chuck a chuck” he sang in an endless loop. Smiling Victoria stepped into the room and as she did so they all stopped.
“Ah mistress.” said Viktor, “Apologies. Ve ave all had a very testing day and ve decided to relax.” he noticed her looking out of the corner of her eye at the huge man and Viktor smiled.
“Zis is Mister Boots ze new manservant.”
“Pleased to meet you Mister Boot.” she said, thinking twice about shaking his hand but doing so anyway, being surprised at his firm but controlled grip.
“Urgh.” said Mister Boot and Victoria nodded. She sat down in her chair.
“Please Continue.” she said, and they looked embarrassed at first but Viktor started Mister Boot with his rhythm section and soon they were all singing again.
Out in the garden in the dark, stars twinkled in the heavens, the flowers edging the drive blowing slowly in a slight breeze. From the house window shone a bright light and the sound of song. This time though there was a new voice, lower than the other woman who was still singing, and it was a clear, soulful voice that cut through the music, shaping the notes as if the sadness and melancholy of the melody would break your heart, and in the darkness if you were to wander further along that drive away from the house then slowly the voices would fade until the last remained, and it was a voice that sounded almost like someone coming home, or perhaps somebody finding one.
Dark and deep she sang, and the sound filled the night with laughter, and with joy. To anyone who could hear her there could be no doubt. It was a voice of belonging, a melody that sounded like safety. It felt like friendship.
It sounded like home.
The Abbott Bowthorpe Dependables
Victoria looked at the small yellow flower in the flower bed beside the lawn. She would not consider herself an accomplished horticulturist, but she knew a dandelion when she saw one.
“This one here Mister Rollins.” she said and pointed at the weed that was swaying gently in the warm summer breeze.
“Dandelion.” said Rollins indignantly. “I will roughasurblulise it so I will.”
“Excellent.” said Victoria, “I am sure it is no less than it deserves.” She was used to this by now. The gardener was at best stone deaf and in conjunction with that he seemed to have his own language that only he could actually understand. She had found quite frequently in the past that Harry Rollins was not one to use a coherent phrase when five minutes of confused mumbling would do.
“So how are the tomatoes in the greenhouse?” She stopped half way along the path that ran from the front of the house along the side of it and into the gardens behind. This was the drive and it was looking particularly well maintained, parts of it seeming to be made of cinders and old coal. It certainly looked well-tended for. At the end of the garden rose the tall Zeppelin tower, the sleek cruiser tethered there high above, hardly moving in the air at all. The back of the garden was a project that she was keen to see done just how she wanted it. The kitchen gazed out onto a small courtyard and beyond that she had requested that the gardener plant a small herb garden. Further away from the house was a short lawn, the closely trimmed short lush grass showing a pattern of stripes that Rollins fussed over on a daily basis.
Further away even than that was the vegetable garden with raised beds and long wide stretches of land on each side, behind those several impressively sized greenhouses, the skylights of which were now fully extended, and as she stood at the front of the lawn she could see the air rippling as it rushed through the vents of the no doubt scorching hot glass houses.
To the side of the garden the drive continued to three brick garages, and further away than that a well surfaced path led to the lift assembly at the bottom of the zeppelin docking tower. In a ditch that ran the entire length of the drive at the side of the road she sniffed as she saw the steam wagon lying on its side in the mud, two of its wheels jutting up at an odd angle, the other two no doubt buried in the ditch.
“When are you going to move the steam wagon, Romney?” she said telepathically and not without a certain element of annoyance. “It has been three weeks now.”
Romney was oddly silent for a few seconds.
“Sorry boss.” he said eventually, “I will get Mister Boot onto it I think. He should be able to shift it I would imagine.”
“I should think so.” she said, thinking of the huge footman who was at that moment in time assisting Viktor with the basement. “If he can’t then nobody can.” Exactly what they were doing in there Victoria did not want to know, but she had heard Viktor mention, “Soil from home” and “comfy” as she had wandered past earlier.
She walked across the lawn and into the vegetable garden. She had decided long ago that as far as vegetables and fruit were concerned she was going to be as self-sufficient as she could be, and the range of vegetables and fruit growing in her garden certainly attested to that.
“Are these potatoes the second earlies or the mains?” she asked as Rollins scurried behind her, more or less cap in hand.
“Scrugglebut.” said Harry and Victoria nodded once before moving on. The vagaries of the potato crops eluded her more or less all of time, but mister Rollins’ speech eluded her more.
“He’s a bloody nutcase.” said Romney in her mind.
“Now, now.” she replied in the same manner, “It takes all sorts to make a world Romney. It simply would not do if we were all the same.”
“Well there’s only one Harry Rollins that’s for sure.” said Romney, “And I don’t necessarily mean that in a good way.”
She walked along a little more,
noting with satisfaction the salad leaves and on the other side of the path cauliflowers now sprouting whiteheads, large dark green cabbages alongside them. She stopped at one leaf that hung from a cabbage over the path. It looked like a piece of lace there were so many holes in it.
“What’s this then?” she said to the gardener who scurried forward and glanced at the leaves, the edges of which seemed almost to be crescent shaped as if being eaten.
“Slugs.” said Rollins, and his eyes both rolled in opposite directions at the same time. “Bastards they are.”
Victoria was more amazed by the fact that Harry had put together a whole sentence, albeit a short one, than the slug damage.
“We have pesticides for them?” she asked. Rollins nodded madly, as if the topic of slugs had managed to concentrate his mind somehow.
“They eats it up likes they enjoys it.” he said and Victoria raised an eyebrow.
“Any other method?”
“Beer.” he said. “Old Master Hennerty down at the Eagle and Hare swears by beer. I tried it and all I saw the next day was that the slug trails seemed to wander about a lot more than usual.”
“I see.” said Victoria, but it looked like Harry was not yet done.
“Copper bands around the plants too, some say.” he said, bobbing about the path as he spoke, neither making eye contact or a great deal of sense at approximately the same time. “That didn’t work either. Just marched over it they did. Nothing seems to work. As it stands I needs to start cutting cabbages and cauliflower or we’re going to lose them.”
“I see.” said Victoria, the number of recipes you could use cauliflower for running through her head and stubbornly staying in single figures. “Perhaps I have a solution.” She looked down the path and saw a glint of silver across the lawn.
“Mister Tibbs!” she called and as she did so she saw the silver robot cat spin its head in her direction and then quickly began to march towards her.
“Yes mistress?” said the cat as it settled down onto its haunches on the path beside her.
The Complete Adventures of Victoria Neaves & Romney Page 31
