Paint Your Dragon Tom Holt

by Paint Your Dragon (lit)

  ‘I conjure you by Asmoday and Beelzebub, Sytray and Satan, eloi, elohim and Miss Frobisher, do please be careful, you nearly made me spill the Black Host...’

  Barbed whips of wind flicked cruelly through the slighted walls of the ruins of Castle Roche. The moon had long since hidden her face behind the clouds and the only light was the livid orange glow from the foul-smelling fire. In the shattered keep of the castle, five white-clad figures, hooded and barefoot, huddled inside the arbitrary confines of a chalked ring. Around them lay the horrible impedimenta of the Black Rite: pentangles, tetragrammata, a sword, a mutilated Bible, a goat’s skull, a frozen chicken, slowly defrosting...

  ‘Are you lot going to be much longer?’ demanded a querulous voice from outside the ring of firelight. ‘It’s freezing.’

  The Great Goat sighed petulantly. ‘These things can’t be rushed, Miss — ah—’

  ‘Filkins,’ hissed the Lesser Goat. ‘Sonia Filkins. She’s Mrs Brownlow’s niece, from the Post Office.'

  ‘Can’t I at least have a blanket or something?’ whined Miss Filkins. ‘I’m getting all goosepimply. And it’s damp. Auntie Edie didn’t say anything about sitting in the damp.’

  The Lesser Goat simpered slightly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘But Brenda’s babysitting up at the vicarage, and now Yvonne’s started college...’

  ‘I know,’ sighed the Great Goat. ‘Maybe next time, Miss Frobisher. I can’t really see any point in continuing under these conditions.’

  Mournful silence. The Lesser Goat started to pack away the horrible impedimenta.

  ‘If you’ve finished with the chicken,’ said Miss Filkins, ‘do you mind if I take it on with me? There’s a really nice recipe in my magazine for chicken.’

  ‘Please,’ grunted the Great Goat, carefully snuggling the skull in cotton wool. ‘Help yourself. Such a pity to let good food go to—’

  He fell silent. Although he was right next to the fire, his legs were suddenly icy cold. He didn’t look round.

  ‘Miss Frobisher,’ he croaked.

  ‘Yes, Dr Thwaites?’

  ‘Perhaps Miss, ah, Filkins needn’t put her clothes back on quite yet.’

  The Lesser Goat looked at him. ‘But I thought—’

  ‘Over there.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the shattered tower. ‘Um, by Asmoday and Beelzebub, Sytray and—’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Miss Frobisher let out a little scream. The thurifer hastily stubbed out his cigarette. The sword-bearer, who was half in and half out of his vestments, made a grab for his trousers. Old Mr Blakiston, the Black Verger, dozed peace­fully on.

  ‘Excuse me,’ repeated Prodsnap. He was carrying an electric torch and wearing an old Barbour jacket he’d found

  on a scarecrow, for the night was cold; but the firelight dazzled vividly on his hooves and horns. ‘We haven’t missed it, have we, only we got a bit held up. Roadworks on the A34 just south of Chipping Norton.’

  ‘Please can I put my clothes on now, Miss Frobisher? I’m going blue.’

  The Great Goat winced. ‘Please be quiet, Miss Filkins,’ he snapped. ‘Um, would you, ah, care to join us? Quick, Miss Frobisher, the chicken!’

  ‘You said I could have it!’

  Prodsnap shivered, despite his Barbour. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t go to any trouble on our account. We had something at a Little Chef on the way. We really only wanted to ask—’

  ‘Bludy ew,’ squeaked the thurifer. ‘Issa bleedin’ deviw!’ The Great Goat closed his eyes, mortified. First thing in the morning there’d be a vacancy for the post of Black Thurifer, and never mind the fact that Barney Philpot was the only twenty-four-hour plumber in the district. ‘Thuri­fer,’ he commanded, ‘be quiet. By Asmoday and...’

  Slitgrind nudged his colleague in the small of the back. ‘For Chrissakes, Prozza,’ he hissed, ‘let’s get out of here. I’m scared. Ow! That was my shin, you clumsy—’

  ‘We were wondering,’ Prodsnap went on, raising his voice slightly, ‘if you could help us out. You see, we’re lost, and—’

  ‘Lost?’ The Great Goat peered at him through thick-lensed bifocals. ‘You mean, you fell with Lucifer, Son of the Morning, wantonly preferring the path of damnation to the—’

  ‘Missed the bus,’ said Slitgrind. ‘Got left behind. I think they did it on purpose,’ he added resentfully. ‘Someone’s going to cop it when I get home.’

  The Great Goat’s mouth was hanging open, like a broken gate. ‘Bus,’ he repeated.

  ‘Outing,’ said Prodsnap. ‘To Nashville. And now we’re having to make our own way home, and it’s not actually shown on the map, so we were wondering if—’

  ‘Hey.’ The Great Goat felt a tug on his sleeve. ‘These two,’ the sword-bearer was muttering. ‘They for real?’

  ‘Of course they are, you foolish man!’ hissed the Great Goat. ‘Look at the horns! The tails!’

  The sword-bearer shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Not what I expected, though.’

  ‘Not what you ...!‘

  ‘Bit of a disappointment, really.’

  ‘How dare you! These are ...'

  He hesitated. Unshakable his faith might be, but there was something about the way that one devil was trying to hide behind the other that did tend to sap the forbidden glamour. ‘Do excuse me asking,’ he said apologetically, ‘but do you gentlemen have any form of identification? Only, you see—’

  ‘It’s that Great Horwood lot,’ muttered the sword-bearer, ‘dressed up in a lot of fancy dress. Here, is that you, Jim Partridge? ‘Cos if it is, you can forget having your car back by the weekend.’

  Prodsnap blushed green. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘We don’t actually have cards or anything. Usually,’ he added, with his remaining shreds of dignity, ‘we don’t feel the need.’

  ‘Prozza—’

  ‘Shuttup, Slitgrind. I’d have thought,’ Prodsnap sol­diered on, ‘the horns and the hooves and all that, they do rather speak for themselves.’

  ‘Cardboard and spirit gum,’ sneered the sword-bearer. ‘Do us a favour, Jim. You’ve had your joke, now bugger off.’

  ‘Prozza,’ Slitgrind hissed; Prodsnap noticed that he was grimly averting his eyes from something. ‘There’s a bint

  over there with no bloody clothes on!’

  Moments like these, Prodsnap reflected, made you realise that the Chardonays of this world do have their uses. Chardonay, of course, was nice and snug in the van, tied up and gagged, likewise the demon Snorkfrod. Now she’d know how to handle a situation like this, no trouble at all.

  ‘Quiet!’ he snapped, then turned to the Great Goat, who was peering disconcertingly at him over the rims of his glasses. ‘Um.’ He racked his brains. Something convincing; a display of black magic, perhaps, an anti-miracle. Trouble was, he didn’t know any. Not much call for black magic when you’re a clerk in the wages office.

  The nasty, suspicious one was leering at him. He decided to improvise.

  ‘Maybe this’ll convince you,’ he said, and threw some­thing on the fire. There was a whoosh of flame and a loud bang. The sword-bearer leapt out of his skin. Old Mr Blakiston woke up, mumbled something about coffee and went back to sleep again. It had worked.

  ‘What the Shopfloor was that?’ hissed Slitgrind.

  ‘Cigarette lighter,’ Prodsnap hissed back. ‘Now then, my, er, good man,’ he went on, trying to look demonic, ‘if you could just, I mean, I command you to give us directions. Now,’ he added, and snarled. He inhaled a whiff of Black Incense and sneezed.

  The Great Goat bowed humbly, felt in his inside pocket and produced an envelope and a biro. ‘Now, if you go back the way you came as far as the Bunch of Grapes ...'

  Eventually, George stopped running.

  Only when he was absolutely convinced nobody was following him, of course. One long life and one short (so far) but highly eventful one had taught him the value of running away as a solution to virtually all problems. The way he saw it, if you can run
, why bother to hide anyway?

  Absolutely no idea where he was. A road sign said Hockley Street, but even if it was telling the truth (George had, on a number of occasions, prolonged his first life by not taking local authorities’ words for it — ‘Sure, that dragon’s dead; ain’t that so, Mr Mayor?’ and ‘Yup, we fixed that bridge last October’ were notable examples) it didn’t actually get him very far. Chances were, Hockley Street was every bit as lost as he was.

  But it did contain a pub and all that running had given George a thirst you could rub down paintwork with. With a sigh of satisfaction that would have convinced you he’d just created the world ahead of schedule and under budget, he leaned on the door of the public bar and flowed in...

  Marvellous thing, the human brain. In its vast, multi-megabyte subconscious memory, it stores everything —everything — seen, heard, glimpsed, semi-noticed, uncon­sciously observed. If the librarians of the brain could get stuff up from the stacks just a little bit quicker, we’d all be supermen, and the planet would probably have been a radioactive shell back in 1906.

  The Dun Cow, Hockley Street. Been there before. Recently...

  As he walked in, Bianca was just explaining to the police officer (not the one who was still curled up in a ball, moaning softly; a different one) that the man who she’d tried to maim with a stool was guilty of art theft, causing explosions, attempted murder and innumerable counts of genocide. She’d never seen the priest before in her life, she could think of no reason why he should want to clobber two of her friends with beer bottles, and she was really sorry about his teeth, honest to God just an accident, probably the tooth fairy was on the phone right now to leading merchant bankers trying to raise some venture capital to finance such a major shipment...

  Been there. Wrecked that. Got the summons.

  George turned, smoothly and swiftly, but not swiftly enough. A hand settled on his shoulder like a speeded-up glacier. Someone enquired of him where he thought he was going, then sidestepped his vicious elbow jab, kicked his knees from under him and clocked him one with a Lowenbrau ashtray.

  ‘It’s him!’ Bianca shrieked, pointing. ‘Let go my arm, I want to kill him!’

  So, apparently, did the witnesses Mike and Peter; and George, who majored in cheating at the University of Life, saw a tiny sliver of a chance. They rushed at him, heavy policemen dragging along behind them like slipped anchors. He accordingly dived towards them, taking the direction his captor least expected. Grabbing hands missed him on all sides. He vaulted onto a table; from the table to the bar top; skidded along the bar like a glass of whisky in a Western; braked sharply; kicked the barmaid neatly in the eye as she lunged for his ankles; hopped down and legged it through the kitchens. As it says in the director’s cut of the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are those that fight dirty, for they shall be one jump ahead.

  ‘Stop him!’

  The cook, assuming that the fast-moving character who’d just burst into his kitchen was a fugitive from payment, upended a tray of chilli over his head, causing him to misnavigate and cannon into the dustbin. It was then just a matter of scooping up his feet, tucking them in after the rest of him, putting on the lid and sitting on it; job done. If cooks were generals, wars would last hours, not years.

  ‘He’s in here!’ the cook shouted. ‘And he owes for twelve portions of chilli.’

  Inside a dustbin, nose full of potato peelings and the nasty things people leave on their plates after they’ve finished eating, even someone as resourceful as George has to take an enforced rest. If he’s wise, he’ll put the time to good use, analysing his position, evaluating the merits of alternative strategies, trying at all costs not to breathe in.

  They emptied the bin on the floor — the cook joined the arrest roster; obstructing the police, assault with a wet colander — and fished George out. A policeman knelt down, handcuffs at the ready.

  ‘Hey, sarge!’ he screamed. ‘The bloke’s on fire!’

  If you’re not used to them, halos can look remarkably like burning petrol, worn externally. There was yelling, milling about, wrenching of fire extinguishers off walls. Some fool set off the fire alarm, adding deafening noise to the feast of sensory input. George wriggled and struck out. In close combat, a discarded Fairy bottle covered in pan scrapings can be as effective as an Ingrains gun.

  ‘Grab the bastard!’ somebody yelled, but you might as well have shouted ‘Fix the economy!’ to a gaggle of politicians. All that happened was that the barmaid got knocked into the sink and one policeman scored a direct hit on another policeman with the first exuberant jet from the fire extinguisher. After that it was sheer Brownian motion, Gorbals-style.

  Emerging from the scrum, George scrabbled across the floor, hauled himself up by the dishwasher and headed for the door. Like Napoleon’s at Waterloo, it was a sound strategy undermined by treacherous conditions. He stood on a second-hand fried egg, skated three yards and collided with Bianca, pushing her into the remains of the Black Forest gâteau. As he looked about him, George saw he was surrounded.

  The saw never say die didn’t mean much to George. He frequently said Die, or more usually, Die, you bastard!,

  generally when standing over a fallen opponent. The principle behind it, however, was a dominant influence on his life. Without looking down he trawled the worktop, snatched up the first thing that came to hand, levelled it at his attackers and snapped ‘Freeze!’ Three quarters of a second later, they realised he was threatening them with a cheese-grater, but three quarters of a second was all he needed. There was a window. He jumped.

  Glass was still landing all around him when he opened his eyes. Scrambling to his feet, he launched himself forwards, aware that the window frame was full of swearing police­men cuffing their fingers. He had the feeling that if they caught up with him, there’d be major sacrilege committed. He ran.

  The back yard wall of the pub was low enough to swarm over if you weren’t fussy about trifles such as broken glass. George dropped down the other side, turned over his ankle, sprawled headlong and banged his head against a car door in the act of opening.

  ‘Get in!’

  George lifted his head. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said get in. Come on!’

  He looked up to see a black Mercedes, back door ajar, on the rear seat a wry grin with a human being attached to its back. Close at hand, angry policemen had discovered the yard gate was locked.

  ‘Who’re you?’ George asked.

  ‘My name’s Stevenson,’ the grin replied. ‘And you’re George. Pull your finger out, old son.’

  ‘But—’

  Chubby Stevenson reached inside his jacket, produced a .45 Colt (like it says in the Book: blessed are the Peacemakers) and pointed it at George’s head. ‘Chop chop,’ he said, ‘there’s a good lad.’

  George realised that it would be discourteous to refuse and got in.

  ‘Have they gone?’

  ‘Yes, Dr Thwaites.’

  ‘Good.’ Wearily, the Great Goat picked up the Black Chalice, shook out the last dregs of cold tea and put it back in its straw-filled shoebox. Nobody had said anything, but they all knew that the handsome silver goblet was about to resume its career as the Swerford Golf Club President’s Cup. Having your nightmare come true is the final dis­illusionment.

  ‘Dr Thwaites.’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘About next Thursday.’ Miss Frobisher’s voice was heavy with the embarrassment of betrayal; the same tone of voice Judas Iscariot used when telling the Chief Priest he’d rather have cash, if it was all the same to him. ‘I’ve just remem­bered it’s the Red Cross whist drive, so I won’t be able to make it after all. I do hope—’

  ‘Not at all, Miss Frobisher, not at all.’ The Great Goat sighed. ‘As it happens, I think I’m busy that day, too. What about you, Barney?’

  The thurifer was about to explain that coincidentally, he’d probably be working late next Thursday, when all five of them became aware of a richer darkness, as some great s
hape interposed itself between them and the fleeting moon.

  ‘Go away!’ snapped the Great Goat. ‘Can’t you see we’re closed?’

  They ducked. As non-verbal responses go, a fiery tsu­nami unleashed about three feet over one’s head is remark­ably eloquent.

  ‘Won’t keep you a tick,’ said the dragon.

  About Good and Evil.

  Kurt twitched impatiently. Moral philosophy had never interested him much, having as much relevance to his profession as a pipe-cleaner to the Mersey tunnel; if he’d wanted a lecture on ethics, however, his first choice wouldn’t have been a word processor.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘save it for the customers, will you? I delivered the goods, just pay me and I’ll split.’

  You also have a dragon to kill, don’t forget.

  Kurt made an exaggerated show of looking round. ‘Nope,’ he said at last, ‘don’t see any dragon in here, unless he’s hiding in the drawer disguised as a pencil. Look, pal, you do your job and I’ll do mine, okay?’

  No. Look at me. This is relevant.

  With a sigh, Kurt perched on the edge of the desk and folded his arms.

  ‘Shoot,’ he said.

  With pleasure. Good and Evil, then. Define Good for me.

  ‘Huh?’ Kurt thought for a minute. ‘Good what?’

  Not good anything. Just Good.

  Kurt’s eyebrow lifted, Spock-like. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘All depends on where you’re at, I guess. Like,’ he went on, ‘it’s a good shot if you fire it and hit me, but from where I’m standing there ain’t much that’s good about it.’

  The screen filled with glowing green ticks. Very good, Mr Lundqvist, you’re way ahead of me. Nevertheless, I’ll explain further.

  ‘Why?’

  Indulge me. Good and Evil are, of course, two sides of the same corn. What’s good for me is bad for you. One man’s Mede is another man’s Persian. The current of morality is more often alternating than direct. That, I imagine, is scarcely news as far as you’re concerned. Am I right?

  ‘More right than Franco, buster. What’s this to do with—?’

  Please don’t interrupt. You’ve been hired to kill a dragon. Dragons are Evil, yes?