Alistair Grim's Odd Aquaticum (13 page)

“Your doubts are in your eyes, Master Grubb,” said Mad Malmuirie. “However, because I’ve grown fond of you, I shall show you how the time stopper works.”

The witch removed McClintock from her robes and my heart began to hammer. I’d been lucky once playing with fire—during my escape from Nightshade’s castle, when I opened Mack and sicced the doom dogs on the prince’s minions. My present plan was something similar. However, being as it was cloudy today, there was no sunlight to protect me. Meaning, when Mad Malmuirie opened Mack and summoned the doom dogs, I would have to snatch him back immediately and make a run for it through the forest. I’d spotted a narrow river on our flight here. If I could reach it in time, I thought, I might be able to wash off my scent and lose the doom dogs on the other side.

That was my plan, anyway. And yet, now that the moment of truth had arrived, the whole lot of it suddenly seemed quite daft.

Mad Malmuirie opened Mack, gave him a quick shake, and then frowned when his face remained dark. “Odd. The time stopper is supposed to awaken when opened.”

“If you tap him on his twelve, ma’am, that usually does the trick.”

Mad Malmuirie obliged, and with a crackle and a flash, Mack came alive at once. Mr. Smears let out a gasp, and the witch smiled wide.

“What time is it?” Mack cried, mustache twirling, his eyes bright with animus. But when he saw who was holding him, he let out a shriek and said, “Ach! Not you!”

“Welcome back, old friend,” said Mad Malmuirie, and Mack began struggling to break free.

“Let me go, ya barmy witch!” he cried. “I belong to Mr. Grim now!”

“Tut-tut, is that any way to greet your old mistress? And what’s with this blue light of yours?”

“That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell ya. I’m of no use to ya anymore. Me time stopper is broken. Been that way ever since Mr. Grim rescued me!”

“
Rescued
you?” Mad Malmuirie laughed. “Alistair Grim has taught you well. If you were broken, you couldn’t go on jabbering such. And now I’ll show your friend Grubb just what a little liar you are.”

Mad Malmuirie thrust McClintock out before her and pressed her thumb down on his winding knob—but nothing happened.

“I tried to tell ya!” Mack cried. “Me time stopper’s broken!”

“It can’t be!” Mad Malmuirie hissed, instantly furious. She pressed down on Mack’s knob again, and again nothing happened.

“I’m afraid Father was telling the truth, ma’am. Mack’s never been able to stop time as long as I’ve known him.”

The witch began to tremble, her eyes lolled in their sockets, and her lips curled back from her teeth.

“Uh-oh,” Mack said, and Mad Malmuirie let out a shriek that shook the very walls of the tumbledown church.

“Take, take, take, that’s all you humans do!” she cried, wheeling on me. “And now I shall take something from Alistair Grim!”

Mad Malmuirie raised her magic wand to strike, when without warning Mack leaped from her hand.
“MCCLINTOCK!”
he cried, and slammed hard into the witch’s brow. Mad Malmuirie yelped and tumbled off her broomstick into the dirt. Before I had time to fathom what was happening, out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Smears swinging for my head.

“Why, you little worm!” he growled. But the clumsy brute was as slow as ever and I easily ducked his blow. Mack flew up from the ground just in time and smacked Mr. Smears between the eyes, then bounced off right into my hands. Dazed, Mr. Smears staggered back and plopped down heavily onto his bottom.

“Nothin’ like a good brawl now and then, eh, mate?” Mack chuckled.

Just then I saw the first of the doom dogs taking shape in a darkened corner of the church—only a billow of black smoke at first—but I didn’t stick around to see any more. I closed Mack’s case, slipped him into my pocket, and dashed for the nearest opening in the crumbling ruins.

“Stop him!” cried Mad Malmuirie. I was already halfway down the hill when I spotted the glowing red eyes of another doom dog blinking open in a hollow nearby.

My breath froze in my chest, but thankfully my legs kept moving, darting this way and that down the craggy slope until finally I reached the edge of the forest. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw a series of bright white flashes coming from inside the church. A doom dog leaped out from the entrance. Mad Malmuirie appeared close behind it, and with a lightning blast from her magic wand, she reduced the beast to a scattering cloud of thick black smoke.

Despite my fear, I couldn’t help but gape in wonder at Mad Malmuirie’s power—the daft enchantress could destroy doom dogs. But more were coming. The hound I’d seen taking shape on the hill tore off after me.

I ran through the forest as fast as I could, my feet barely touching the leaf-covered ground. The
crunch, crunch, crunch
of the shadow hound’s paws drew closer and closer behind me. I dared not look over my shoulder again. The river was just beyond the rise ahead of me, I remembered, and in no time I reached its banks and splashed across to the other side. The doom dog howled, and I whirled round to find the beast pacing frantically back and forth along the opposite bank.

Why wasn’t it coming after me?

The doom dog touched a tentative paw at the river’s edge and immediately shrank back, squealing in pain as if the water had burned it.

“You’re like any other spirit, aren’t you?” I said, breathless. “You can’t travel over water!”

The doom dog snarled and barked at me. Seconds later, Mad Malmuirie and Mr. Smears emerged from the forest on her broomstick, and the creature set its glowing red sights on them. The doom dog gnashed its teeth and leaped into the air, and once again Mad Malmuirie fired a bolt of lightning from her wand, reducing the beast to smoke.

Panicking, I took to my heels, my lungs burning as I ran for my life. And yet, deep down, I knew there was no way I could escape. The witch’s broomstick was much too fast. And sure enough, when I looked back over my shoulder Mad Malmuirie and Mr. Smears were almost upon me.

The witch, her eyes crazed with hatred, raised her wand and fired. I dove out of the way, and her lightning bolt streaked past me, missing my head by inches and striking the forest bed in a spray of dirt and burning leaves.

Mad Malmuirie zoomed over me, circled her broomstick back through the trees, and then raised her wand again.

“Now I’ve got you!” she hissed.

But then, with a loud
thwiiip
, something whizzed across the air and splattered her from head to toe in a blanket of orange goo.

“Argh!”
she cried, losing control, and her broomstick veered sharply toward a large oak tree. Mr. Smears jumped off just in time, but Mad Malmuirie, covered as she was in orange goo, smacked into the tree with a loud
splat!
She was stuck there—out cold and halfway up the trunk—like a redheaded wasp caught in a glob of honey.

I scrambled to my feet to find Nigel’s egg blaster hovering by itself in midair only a few yards away from me. My jaw dropped—I could hardly believe my eyes—when a glowing blue hand materialized around the egg blaster’s handle.

“Cleona!” I cried, and the rest of her body quickly followed.

“Sorry it took so long for me to find you,” she said. “I must say, however, this saving-your-life business is getting to be a full-time job.”

My heart swelled with relief. “Thank goodness you’re all right,” I said. “And Nigel, the others…?”

“Everyone’s fine,” Cleona said, when suddenly her eyes grew wide. “Look out, Grubb!” she shouted.

Cleona fired the blaster again and the egg whizzed past my head. Spinning round, I found Mr. Smears falling backward onto the ground in a massive blob of purple goo. He had tried to sneak up on me.

“I’ll get you for this, Grubb!” Mr. Smears growled, struggling. But the more he struggled, the more the forest bed stuck to him, and soon he looked like some enchanted leaf man that Alistair Grim might like to have at his Odditorium.

“That should keep them both busy for a while,” Cleona said. “Now we best get you back home before Uncle sends everyone out looking for you.”

“McClintock,” I said. “Mad Malmuirie opened him, which means—”

Just then a crow cawed loudly above our heads, and I gazed up to find at least a hundred of the big black birds staring down at us from amongst the trees. Crows can naturally sense when doom dogs enter our world, and Prince Nightshade had trained his flock to alert him of their presence in the event they were tracking animus. It was impossible to tell whether or not any of these crows belonged to the prince, but one thing was certain: we needed to get away from them just in case.

Caw!
another of the birds called, and Cleona made a fist at it.

“Caw yourself!” she called back defiantly. I threw my arms around her neck, and in a flash Cleona took flight, soaring up through the clouds and straight for the Odditorium with me hanging on.

As we drew nearer, I discovered that Father’s mechanical wonder had been readied for battle. The blue energy shields were up, the gunneries engaged, and the wasps were buzzing round and round outside. The hangar doors to Nigel’s quarters were open, and as Cleona flew us inside, we found Father preparing to take off in the demon buggy.

“Hold your horses,” Cleona said. “I told you I’d bring him back.”

Father leaped from his seat and hugged me tight, upon which Cleona rushed over to the talkback and announced to everyone that I’d been rescued.

“Are you all right?” Father cried. “Did Mad Malmuirie hurt you?”

“No, sir, but she knows about Excalibur. The warding stone…She—”

“I assumed as much, yes.”

“And you were right, sir. She wants nothing to do with Prince Nightshade. But Mr. Smears, he’s in league with her too.”

Father raised a quizzical eyebrow, and I promptly related how Mad Malmuirie and Mr. Smears teamed up after tracking him to London. I told him about the stolen map (which, as I suspected, turned out to be untrue) and Mr. Smears’s plan to hold me for ransom. I also gave a brief account of my escape and how the witch destroyed the doom dogs with her magic wand. However, before I could broach the subject of McClintock being a time stopper, Cleona jumped in about the crows and said, “You needn’t worry about them tracking us, Uncle. We flew out of that forest so quickly, those dopey birds didn’t know what hit them.”

Father rushed over to the hangar doors and gazed down at the clouds. “No sign of them,” he muttered to himself. “We’re too high for crows to fly, I should think.”

“Pshaw, I told you. It’s not like I’ve never shaken off a flock of crows before.”

“Nonetheless, we need to get moving. Should one of those crows lead Prince Nightshade to us before we acquire Excalibur…”

Father shuddered, then threw the lever on the wall, and the hangar doors closed behind him with a hiss.

“Pardon me, Uncle,” Cleona said, “but did you say Excalibur?”

“That I did. We shall journey to the magical realm of Avalon on a quest for the sword of King Arthur himself.”

“Avalon?” Cleona gasped. “But that means—”

“Precisely, my love. Therefore, I suggest you charge the reserves, batten down the hatches, and prepare yourself for what shall henceforth be known as Alistair Grim’s Odd Aquaticum!”

A
n
Aquaticum
, did you say?” Lord Dreary asked.

The old man sat openmouthed in an armchair. Professor Bricklewick, his face frozen in a similar expression, stood by his side. For some time now the gentlemen had been peppering Father with questions as he combed the bookshelves from atop one of the library ladders. I had loads of questions too—mainly about all that time stopper business—but with Lord Dreary and the professor jabbering on such, I didn’t think it my place to interrupt.

“Yes, an Aquaticum,” Father replied. “A term I coined to mean a sea, lake, or river voyage in search of Odditoria.”

“Well, I gathered that,” said Lord Dreary. “Legend has it that Excalibur is bestowed upon King Arthur’s descendants by Queen Nimue of Avalon, who thrusts up the sword from an enchanted lake—hence her title, the Lady of the Lake.”

“An excellent summation, old friend,” Father said. “Therefore, anyone with half a brain would deduce that Excalibur presently resides in Avalon, the entrance to which must be underwater.”