The Last Chance Hotel

by Nicki Thornton

  Kingfisher and Tiffany had surprised him by heading for the waterfall. Seth wondered what their plan could possibly be. Help would be too far away even if anyone could see in the dark that they’d headed this way.

  The knife glinted silver in Kingfisher’s hand.

  Seth had no option. He was going to have to hand over the firefly cage. Unless he let himself fall into that unforgiving water. He could do it. And he could take the dark device with him and it would be the end of both him and firefly cage. It was his only way out.

  Over Kingfisher’s shoulder Seth could see that Tiffany’s progress was getting slower as she stumbled over the rocky ground.

  But Seth caught a glimpse of something that surprised him. Closing in on her was someone who had come to find them in the darkness rather than heading for the hotel. The bulky, scarred figure of Count Marred.

  Then a spark of blue zapped Kingfisher’s chest and he dropped the knife as if it had become lightning. Seth turned and saw Angelique, her face set determinedly.

  Kingfisher was quick and grabbed, not at Seth, but at the cage. Now they both had hold of it, neither willing to let go, grappling and slipping on the treacherous rock. Seth felt himself lose his footing and teeter back so that the rush of water was like thunder in his ears. Still he clung on.

  Angelique stepped in and her cane swept low to the ground, swiping at Kingfisher’s legs, Kingfisher’s grip on the cage loosened, but was the only thing stopping Seth falling into the water and he felt himself tip backwards.

  A hand grabbed him. A firm grip pulled him slowly away from the edge to safety and Seth found himself looking into the dark eyes of Angelique Squerr. They both turned in time to see Kingfisher already leaping away, clutching the firefly cage like a trophy.

  The water was too loud for it to be heard, but Seth mouthed thanks.

  He didn’t know why Kingfisher headed for the waterfall, but Seth could see Tiffany now scrambling just a few feet ahead of Marred, heading in exactly the same direction.

  Seth struggled on, fighting exhaustion. Climbing was slow and painful as he closed the gap on Kingfisher, with Tiffany just ahead and Marred and now Angelique closing in. They were all scrabbling upwards slowly, the water soaking all of them and making it almost impossible to see.

  When Kingfisher was only an arm’s length ahead of him, Seth wearily launched himself. Kingfisher kicked out and started to scramble backwards across rocks, still heading higher towards the very top of the waterfall, where the water cascaded out of the hillside. But Kingfisher held on to the firefly cage.

  Seth felt the full force of Tiffany careering into him from the side, knocking the breath out of him. She tried to give Seth a kick, but he reached out and grabbed her leg, jerking her off her feet. She satisfyingly face-planted into soft earth, but only turned to flash those perfect white teeth at Seth in a grin that told him he’d failed to hurt her.

  He found it much easier than he thought it would be to punch her, because he had imagined himself doing it so very often. Tiffany screamed as Seth’s punch connected with her nose, enough to send out a trickle of red blood.

  ‘Look what you did to my dose, Seppi,’ said Tiffany, her eyes filling with tears.

  Seth left her nursing her bloodied nose and went for Kingfisher, scrabbling up the slippery rocks, his fist stinging.

  Soaking wet, stained with Tiffany’s blood and barely able to speak from where Kingfisher had choked him, Seth breathed heavily, still believing he could stop him and get back the firefly cage.

  Then Kingfisher waved something aloft and Seth could see what it was – the black book.

  Kingfisher lifted it and dangled it above the torrent of water, threatening to drop it. Seth could do it, he could reach Kingfisher. Kingfisher laughed and Seth saw his precious book curl in an arc, thrown from Kingfisher’s grasp and heading straight for the pitiless river. Without thinking, Seth took his eye off Kingfisher, dived forward and caught his book, only just, in the tips of his fingers, saving it from being lost for ever in the river. And when he looked around, Tiffany, still clutching her nose, was reaching towards Kingfisher.

  Kingfisher went to take her hand, but she wasn’t reaching for him. She totally surprised him by grabbing instead at the firefly cage and shoved him aside, knocking him off balance. He was too shocked to stop her and, just to make sure, Tiffany sent the firefly cage slamming into the side of Kingfisher’s head.

  They were high now, almost at the top of the crashing waterfall, but there was something about the large, flat stone on the very edge of the roaring waterfall where Tiffany had stopped, something about the way it shimmered as if the rock itself was moving into the distance that told Seth something was wrong and that it was already too late.

  Tiffany reached forward, the fingers of one hand stretching out, the other closed tightly around the firefly cage and she touched the large flat stone.

  And then she wasn’t there.

  She had completely vanished.

  49. The Last Hope

  Seth looked at the blank rock where Tiffany had literally disappeared before his eyes.

  ‘Well,’ said a voice, and Inspector Pewter appeared at his elbow, nodding at the empty rock, water dripping off his hair and off the end of his nose. ‘That’ll mean an awful lot of paperwork on Monday.’

  Kingfisher, also drenched, hair plastered to his face, his moustache sagging, let out a cry of rage. ‘She escaped in the teleport I set up! And she took the firefly cage with her! We must get after her, we’ve got to stop her, we—’

  ‘You, young man, are going nowhere,’ growled Pewter. ‘I am arresting you in the name of MagiCon.’ Pewter took from a pocket what looked like a piece of thin, green twine and Seth hoped he had something more substantial than something you used to tie up tomatoes if he was going to secure Kingfisher.

  ‘No!’ The rest of Kingfisher’s rage was lost in the torrent of the waterfall. He took one look at the twine and backed away, sending out a vicious kick at Pewter, who dodged nimbly. Seth didn’t even see how he got Kingfisher’s hands behind his back. But as soon as his hands were tied, Kingfisher stopped yelling and struggling, and went completely silent. In fact, he stopped moving. He seemed to float like a balloon.

  ‘Magical arrest,’ Pewter explained to Seth.

  They were the last words Seth remembered as his head started swimming. He felt all the pain where he had been punched and hit about the head and the tiredness from chasing through the forest and the climb to the top of the waterfall. He felt the weakness take over his legs, which buckled beneath him and he fell in a crumpled heap of exhaustion at Pewter’s feet.

  Someone had tucked Seth into bed. His first thought was to lie there for as long as possible. To snuggle back into the pillow. For ever, if at all possible. Nightshade was curled up on the end of the bed and he moved his legs slowly so as not to disturb her.

  He lifted a hand with difficulty and tentatively put it to his head, which felt as if it had swelled to the size of a watermelon. It throbbed with pain as if someone was attacking the watermelon with a hammer.

  He needed to know what was going on even more than he needed to sleep, so he struggled downstairs, following the sound of voices into the kitchen. His hand felt for his black book where he liked to keep it tucked inside his shirt. But someone had taken it from him. Seth moved his aching limbs painfully towards the kitchen and heard Count Marred sobbing.

  ‘Why? Why did he have to kill him?’

  ‘I doubt Kingfisher was smart enough for it to have been his plan.’ There was the sound of Pewter quietly stirring tea. ‘Following orders is my guess.’

  ‘Red Valerian? Orders to get hold of the firefly cage and eliminate Dr Thallomius in the process?’

  Seth finally reached the kitchen, which contained only Pewter, Count Marred and Angelique.

  Pewter was nodding. ‘It started to go wrong when he couldn’t quite pin the blame on Seth. He was operating out of his depth. Then Tiffany got the sniff of something
she’d like to be involved in and even she managed to outsmart Kingfisher.’

  ‘Tiffany always had plenty of brains, she just never found anything worth using them for before,’ said Seth, speaking out and noticing the kitchen was tidy and smelt of boiled eggs and toast.

  As they all wished him a good morning, Seth glanced at the cracked kitchen clock, amazed that he’d been asleep for hours. He couldn’t believe it was actually morning.

  He guessed the other guests had probably gone and that Mr and Mrs Bunn and Henri were either still sleeping or just keeping well out of the way.

  Was it really over? Was he really no longer under suspicion?

  He thought how he’d felt when Tiffany had been to his room and brought out his black book and the gold coin. And he’d been forced to reveal the bottle of poison. At that point he had really felt it was all over for him, that the case against him was cemented and he no longer even stood a chance of clearing his name.

  Pewter pushed a cup of strong tea towards Seth. ‘Hope you slept well. We’ve spent the last two years after Red Valerian and had not a single lead, just a lot of very unpleasant and suspicious deaths,’ Pewter went on, turning back to Marred. ‘I’ve despatched Mr Kingfisher to some people who will be delighted with anything he has to tell us.’

  Seth hoped Kingfisher ended up spending a very long time in the same dark cell as Seth had imagined himself in.

  ‘Kingfisher had a ruhnglas, exactly like mine,’ explained Seth, his throat raw from where Kingfisher had attacked him. ‘That’s how he got into the dining room with the poison – and put the blame on me. He came prepared.’

  He hadn’t had the chance to mention he’d discovered Red Valerian’s calling card in Kingfisher’s room and walked stiffly over to Pewter to wearily hand him the card he’d found and taken from Kingfisher’s room. ‘I guess this proves he was working for Red Valerian?’

  ‘At least we have our murderer, Boldo, even if the firefly cage may take a little longer,’ said Pewter.

  ‘I still don’t understand how Kingfisher almost got away with it,’ said Count Marred, shaking his head. ‘Putting the poison in the dessert like that made it so confusing, so difficult to pin on him. Slippery fellow.’

  ‘Until we get a chance to get the whole truth out of Kingfisher all I can do is offer you my guesses, even though I am sure they are very poor ones,’ said Pewter. ‘But, for what it’s worth, remember – he had the run of the hotel with that ruhnglas and plenty of opportunity for murder. Torpor was really at his mercy.’ Pewter sipped his tea thoughtfully. ‘I imagine him scouting around for a good opportunity – one that he might get away with and squarely put the blame on someone else. He had arrived armed with poison, we know. He may have planned to do nothing more clever than sneak in on Torpor when he was alone in his bedroom, we may never know. But I can only imagine he must have seen that dessert going into the dining room, all marked up as to only be eaten by Dr Thallomius – well, what would you do? It was an opportunity too good to miss. And a brilliant way to make sure he looked innocent of the crime.’

  Seth slumped back on to one of the chairs next to Angelique, who had a black coffee in front of her and was quietly examining the silver top of her red cane.

  ‘The moment Tiffany learnt that all the folk staying in the hotel were magical she would have been desperate to take every chance she got to grab any magic for herself,’ said Seth. ‘Kingfisher couldn’t have known that Tiffany was exactly the sort to completely turn the tables on him the very first moment she got. When Tiffany knew there was a chance to steal an immensely powerful magical device all for herself, she would have seized it. And she quickly did something with it that was terrifying and horrible,’ he muttered.

  Pewter laid a firm hand on Seth’s shoulder. ‘The prospect of magic has a very damaging effect on some people.’

  ‘Will she now have magic? The power of that thing?’ asked Count Marred.

  Seth remembered the lumbering eyeless creatures and knew that wasn’t simply bad magic, that was truly terrifying magic.

  ‘We’ll have caught up with her before she knows how to control it,’ reassured Pewter, checking his ornate wristwatch. ‘I’d say there’s a 50:50 chance that she’ll simply be burnt to a crisp if she tries to use it.’

  ‘And what’s the other fifty, Pewter?’

  ‘That she’ll end up the most powerful girl in the universe.’

  50. The Prospect of Magic

  Angelique was looking deep into the end of her cane as it glowed blue. Then she snapped the top shut and tapped a shoe against it, giving Pewter a tiny nod.

  Pewter turned to the Count. ‘We might be on Tiffany’s trail quicker than you think. We might have our best lead yet. We should get on to it.’

  Did this mean Angelique had managed to take some sort of reading that would give her a clue as to where Tiffany had teleported to? Seth guessed so, but he knew too little about magic to try to understand. Plus he was just too tired.

  ‘Well, that teleport won’t stay open for ever,’ said Count Marred. ‘I should get going.’ He said his farewells.

  ‘Am I allowed to know what’s going to happen to my book?’ asked Seth.

  It always seemed to become warm in his hand and belong there. He felt having a connection to a book that presumably had been written by a sinister sorcerer was not a smart thing to admit to. But he suddenly could not bear to think that he’d never see that book again.

  Pewter turned from where he was refilling the kettle and his face crinkled into a smile, his eyes shining bright blue behind his glasses. From his pocket, he retrieved the black book and pushed it towards Seth.

  Seth reached for it. It was probably the sort of magical artefact Angelique would insist on removing. He quickly tucked it snugly inside his shirt, next to his skin. It glowed.

  He looked up to see Angelique standing over him. ‘I still don’t think you understand,’ she said.

  ‘I do. You are an undercover magical secret agent investigating those Missing Feared Exploded. Your job is to discover who actually died in the Unpleasant – and who is in hiding. I even know how you do it – you go into buildings with a known magical history and if there are only traces of old magic, you do things like take away all magical artefacts and it’s called “cleaning”. See, I know everything. I know that’s what brought you here. You were on the trail of Wich Wracht, an MFE, to see if he is alive or dead. Although I still can’t believe this Wich Wracht, this sinister sorcerer, used to live here at the Last Chance Hotel. And had Dr Thallomius’s firefly cage. It must have been here years. Wich Wracht was a scientific sorcerer and probably conducted all sorts of sinister scientific magic and experiments here. The book is probably his, but if I’m allowed to, I’m going to keep it,’ he finished.

  Neither Angelique nor Pewter said anything and Seth tried to work out what they weren’t telling him.

  ‘The magical history of this place – you’re not – you don’t mean Mr Bunn is from a magical family?’ he asked in horror as more pieces fell together and he really didn’t like the picture he was seeing. ‘This house—? He just found a way to use the firefly cage, right?’ He was struck by an even more terrifying thought. ‘Tiffany – she isn’t going to inherit magic?’

  ‘You are right that this house is in dire need of proper cleaning,’ sniffed Angelique. ‘Goodness knows what a proper clean will find. Magic still in the walls, definitely in the garden. But don’t worry, the Bunns aren’t a magical family.’

  Seth breathed an audible sigh of relief.

  Pewter gave out a bark of a laugh. ‘Guess you’ve had enough excitement.’ He moved closer to Seth. ‘I can see it’s nice here. This spooky wood. The glowworms. The rabbits. What do you know of your heritage, Seth? What did the Bunns tell you about your parents?’

  ‘My father worked for them as a chef and—’

  ‘Seth, you said a moment ago that Wich Wracht . . . look, you have worked out that Wich Wracht is a she, not a he?’ said Angeliq
ue. ‘You do realize that Wich Wracht is quite possibly your mother?’

  Seth blinked several times. His mind refused to take in what she was saying. He felt like he might pass out all over again. ‘But . . . but Wich Wracht, a sinister MFE, can’t be m-my mother.’

  ‘It needs proper investigating,’ said Angelique. ‘But yes, probably.’

  That meant Angelique had travelled here to investigate if his mother was alive or dead.

  It seemed incredible, too much to take in.

  Seth delved deep inside his mind for a single memory of his mother. His father had always become silent or so upset if Seth ever tried to talk about her, he’d stopped a long time ago.

  Had she really been a sinister sorcerer and left him a mysterious book that mentioned magical things? What had his father known?

  And if his father hadn’t ever breathed a word to him about any of that, then what else might there be to learn? What other secrets had his father and his mother been keeping?

  His mind ran on. If his mother’s official status was Missing Feared Exploded that meant no one was completely sure – was his mother even really dead?

  Pewter chuckled. ‘And I am pretty sure the Bunns never owned this place. It was your mother’s ancestral home. They just took advantage, took it over after your father disappeared, I imagine. You were too young to know what was going on. The Bunns would have got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for Miss Squerr and her department checking on these things.’ Pewter checked his huge watch. ‘OK, duty calls.’ He rose.

  Seth could only stare from one to the other of them. ‘The hotel is mine?’ He waved around him, looked towards Angelique for confirmation and she was nodding.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever considered the possibility of trying a little magic, Seth?’ she said, giving a little cough.