The Day Before Tomorrow (19 page)

Denny did not obey this instruction.  He looked at Cindy impatiently.  ‘I know it’s him,’ he said.  ‘I just meant … oh never mind.  What the hell is he doing?’

Cindy shrugged. ‘He’s eating rats,’ she said. 

Denny’s patience was threatening to give out.  ‘I know he’s eating rats,’ he snapped.  ‘I’m not blind. 
Why
is he eating rats?’

Cindy shrugged again.  ‘Because he doesn’t want to eat people?’ she suggested. 

‘Hmm,’ Denny frowned. ‘Go and get Hecaté,’ he instructed.  ‘This wants investigating.’  

Cindy scurried away to fetch Hecaté from her explorations of mainframe and Denny continued to stare into the basin.  ‘That’s weird,’ he muttered to himself.  ‘A vampire with a conscience?  I don’t believe it.’

* * *

‘We shouldn’t have promised to get him out of here,’ whispered Tamar to Stiles as they followed the little rat-like man through the intricate alleys and back streets of the worst neighbourhood in the universe, not even excepting Los Angeles, which is apparently thronging with vampire and demon activity.  ‘I mean,’ she continued, still
sotto voce.
  ‘We don’t even know if
we
can get out of here.’

‘We only said, we’d take him with us,
if
we left,’ said Stiles.  ‘I was very careful about that.’

Tamar sighed at this evidence of Stiles’s sophistry.  She was beginning to worry that she was having a bad influence on him. 

It was as if he divined her thoughts.  ‘It’s the way I always work with these types,’ he assured her.  ‘You never know when you might have to back out of your word at the last moment.  My superiors used to take a dim view sometimes, of my more nefarious connections.  Besides, he’d have done the same to us, given half a chance.  You can’t trust him an inch.’ 

‘Oh well, if you say so.’ 

‘Anyway, we’ll get him out of here if we can,’ Stiles continued.  ‘We are the good guys after all.’

‘I sometimes wonder,’ returned Tamar mournfully.  ‘We do seem to spend a lot of time in Hell, for good guys.’     

  ‘On business,’ said Stiles.  ‘Only on business.  I used to spend a lot of time in criminal haunts, but it didn’t make me a criminal.’ 

‘Mmmm, okay.’  Tamar sounded unconvinced. 

‘Here,’ announced “Porkchop” suddenly.  They had arrived at a large building which both Tamar and Stiles recognised as being some sort of jail. 

‘Ha!’ said Stiles. ‘I might have known.’

‘How the mighty have fallen,’ said Tamar. 

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Stiles.  ‘He’s up to his old tricks see.  This place is deserted, look around.  No guards, no other prisoners. This place has been abandoned for ages. Right Porky?’

‘Right you are Mr. Stiles.’ nodded Porky. 

‘So where is he?’ asked Tamar. 

‘Ah visitors,’ came the silky tones of Askphrit himself from somewhere within the depths of the darkened doorway.  ‘I have been expecting you, of course.  Indeed, I waited for you to find me before my final dénouement.  I never had any doubt that you would work out that I had the box.  I have always had the utmost respect for you as an adversary my dear.’  And so saying, he walked out to greet them, resplendent in red velvet and a large crown balanced on his horns.  He was smirking and carrying a metallic box, about the size of a box of mansize tissues, under his arm. 

He gave Porky a cursory glance. ‘Traitor,’ he commented mildly enough.  Porky trembled.  He had been in Hell long enough to know, that Askphrit was at his most dangerous when he was apparently as mild as milk.  ‘I shall deal with you later, clear off.’  Porky cleared. 

Askphrit held up the silvery box.  ‘Curious thing isn’t it?’ he said.  ‘I haven’t been able to positively identify the element that it is constructed of, only that it is only found elsewhere in the heart of stars.’ 

  ‘Funny,’ Tamar observed.  ‘It was bigger than that, the last time I saw it.’

‘It had a lot more in it back then,’ Askphrit told her. 

Tamar nodded, not taking her eyes off the box.  She was white to the lips – her fists clenched. 

‘Why would that make a difference to the size of the box?’ asked Stiles, literal to the end. 

‘If that sidekick of yours was here, he could answer that better than any of us, couldn’t he?’ said Askphrit to Tamar.  He was referring to Denny’s unfortunate encounter with the previous opening of the box.  Tamar had no idea how he knew so much (he had shown no surprise when she had said that she had seen the box before) but she was careful not to show this.  As it happened it was a wasted effort, Askphrit knew perfectly well how she was feeling. 

‘This must be killing you,’ he observed sardonically.  ‘And I’m not going to tell you how I found out either.’

‘I’m surprised that boy isn’t with you,’ he went on.  ‘I thought you two were joined at the hips, or the groin or whatever.’  He smirked.  ‘Pity, I would have liked to see him again.  One last time you know.’

Tamar went on clenching and unclenching her fists. 

‘So, are you going to tell us where you found the box then?’  interposed Stiles smoothly. 

‘Ah, the interrogator,’ said Askphrit equally smoothly, turning his attention to Stiles for the first time.  ‘I realise, of course, that you are merely stalling for time, but since you have no chance of stopping me, I see no harm in indulging your curiosity.  Except I don’t see why I should.’ 

‘He didn’t find it,’ said Tamar.  ‘It found him.’

Askphrit deigned to look impressed.  ‘Very good, my dear.  Did you just work that out?’  He waved a dismissive hand.  ‘Who cares?  You are right of course.   The Fates intervened on my behalf.  So much easier than all that running about
looking
for the dammed thing.’ 

‘I thought that everything the Fates did, had been undone,’ said Stiles. 

Tamar trod on his foot. Too late. 

‘Oh you did, did you?’ said Askphrit.  ‘I can see by her expression that she thought so too.  Well, you’re both wrong.’

‘Not down here eh?’ said Tamar. 

‘That’s right, I am outside of the world here, outside of time, normal rules do not apply.’

‘Normal?’ said Stiles. 

‘It’s a relative term,’ conceded Askphrit. ‘However, I assure you, this is the genuine article.  But you know that, don’t you? Whatever else I am, I am no charlatan.  There’s no fun in it, if it’s a lie.  No drama.’  

‘So,’ said Tamar after a long pause. 

‘Indeed,’ said Askphrit.  ‘Bit of an anticlimax after all, isn’t it?’

Tamar did not think so. In fact, she recognised a crisis when she saw it.  ‘Stop him!’ she yelled and darted forward as Askphrit delicately and with ironic reverence opened the box. 

‘No!’ she and Stiles cried out together. 

As the lid opened, the box vanished in a silvery spiral of glittering smoke.  Then it was gone. 

‘Poof!’ said Askphrit. 

‘You can talk,’ muttered Stiles.

~ Chapter Twenty Five ~

I
t was so sudden, so final, so irrevocable.  Tamar was hit hard, stunned by the flat finality of it.  The box was – gone. It was over.  And they – she – had lost.

Askphrit exhibited his typical evil nemesis or “villain’s” laughter.  That is the special kind, which has an independent existence from its owner and remains behind on its own for a little while after the owner has vanished.

Tamar could have also done this, but she had never though it worth her while.

‘Well, that’s him gone at any rate,’ said Stiles, trying to look on the bright side. ‘Thank god for small mercies, eh?’

Tamar was just standing there, looking decidedly punchy. Stiles was concerned about this – he would work his way up to worry later, if the situation warranted it.  For now, he was just concerned.  

He took Tamar gently by the shoulders.  ‘Come on then,’ he encouraged, ‘got to find a way out of here. 

Tamar swayed slightly in front of him and gazed blankly at him. 

‘Never say die eh, never give up.  Don’t let the bastards grind you down?’ he tried this one as a last resort. 

Tamar switched her unfocussed gaze to Stiles. ‘Bastards’ she murmured vaguely. She looked as if she was very, very far away. Completely gone, in fact, somewhere deep inside of her own head. 

Stiles jumped straight over worry and went directly to panic. 

He shook her hard; his grasp of psychology was weak at best.  ‘
Tamar
!’ 

She did not so much ignore him as seem to be entirely unaware of him.

‘Oh shit!’ he wondered if he should slap her. 

This was beyond him, he decided.  She seemed to have withdrawn completely into herself. Probably the shock, he thought.  He felt a little like this himself, but within his nature was the unspoken feeling always, that there was always
something
that could be done.  Tamar, on the other hand seemed to have given up.  Stiles, who had known Tamar for quite a long time, was frightened by this.  If Tamar thought it was over, it probably was.  If only because, if she gave up, who else could take over for her?  He would have to get her back to Denny; he was probably the only one who could snap her out of this. 

He put his arm around her shoulders and gently steered her away from the jail.  His main problem was that he had not the faintest idea where he was supposed to be going.  He kept up a steady stream of reassuring commentary.  ‘Come in then, off we go.’

‘Go,’ muttered Tamar.

‘Yep, have to get going now. Find a way out of here.  Denny will be worried about you, you know.’ 

‘Denny?’  She seemed, marginally, to be coming back from wherever she had been.

‘That’s right. You remember Denny.’ 

‘Of course I remember Denny,’ she snapped.  She was right back with him now all right.  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she glanced around her. ‘This is the wrong way,’ she told him. 

Stiles flung his arms around her, thus highly embarrassing both of them. 

‘What
has
got into you?’  asked Tamar.  ‘I was just thinking.’ 

‘Well, you looked,’ Stiles informed her, ‘like you were Joan of Arc or something, having visions or hearing voices.  Thinking about what?’

‘I was,’ said Tamar simply.  ‘And I was thinking about what to do next.’

Stiles relief was immeasurable at hearing this.  ‘Thank God,’ he said.  ‘And what should we do next?’ 

‘Got to get out of here first, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

‘And then,’ she told him firmly, as if expecting some kind of argument.  ‘We’ve got to find that damn box.’

* * *

Stiles did not even pretend to understand it. 

Tamar proposed to find the box before Askphrit had.  But she did not intend, she said, to use the historical files to do so. 

‘Takes too bloody long,’ she said.  ‘Too complicated.’  She intended to use quantum. But when she tried to explain how this worked, Stiles felt his mind skidding away from the thoughts.  Tamar said this was not surprising. All magic was based on quantum, she said, it was essentially a different set of physical laws from the ones that humans regularly used.  This was why although humans knew about quantum physics, they did not understand it.  Just as previously, humans had known about magic, but had been unable to duplicate it.  Stiles could just about follow this part, but his brain was beginning to hurt, so he did not want to encourage this line of conversation further.

He was saved from saying so by the unmistakable sounds of digging below their feet.  This sound was accompanied by the sounds of voices arguing. 

Against all probability, someone was digging
up
. 

‘I tell you, we’ve come the wrong way again.’ said one voice. 

‘Go on,’ said another.  ‘You couldn’t find your way out of a one doored room, with a map.’ 

‘I resent that,’ came the first voice. 

‘Yah, you can say what you like,’ said yet another voice.  ‘You’re drunk again anyway.’ 

‘Well?  Ain’t we all drunk?’

‘I’m not,’ came a fourth voice.

‘Well, anyway, you’re as stupid as a bleedin’ troll,’ came the first voice.  ‘No wonder we’re lost.’

‘We’re not lost.’

Tamar and Stiles listened, fascinated.  Stiles looked at Tamar, who shrugged. 

Then a large pickaxe burst through the ground just in front of them.  And, within seconds, the hole was enlarged by the emergence of a large crowd of small bearded men. 

‘Dwarfs!’ said Tamar, unable to keep the shock out of her voice.  ‘What the hell …?’

The Dwarfs had not noticed them; they were arguing again.  ‘There I told you,’ said one.  ‘This isn’t right.’

‘How would you know, troll brains,’ said another.  ‘We don’t know what it looks like, do we?’  He bounced the handle of his axe off the other dwarfs head.  It made a loud clang as it rebounded of his iron helmet.

‘Oi!’ said the first dwarf.  ‘What do you think you are you doing?’ his diction was deadly. 

‘I ham ’itting hyou on the ’ead,’ parried the other dwarf.  ‘Hand hwhat hare hyou a goin’ to do habout hit?’

‘Why you rotten little bugger,’ roared the first dwarf and he ran towards the other dwarf his axe flailing in his hand. 

‘Time to break this up I think,’ murmured Tamar.    

She strolled over to the scuffling dwarfs. ‘Excuse me …’ she began, she got no further.  The two fightng dwarfs stopped their
fracas
and the others, their shouted encouragements and they all stared at her uneasily. 

The first dwarf opened his mouth.  ‘Snow White, sw’elp us,’ he yelled.  ‘Leg it, lads.’  Each and every dwarf made to obey this instruction with alacrity.  But Tamar picked up the two fighting dwarfs by their helmets and dangled them a few feet from the ground. 

Tamar, it should be pointed out, looked not a bit like Snow White, apart from the obvious similarities of colouring, i.e. skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony etc.  Snow White, at least the Snow White that I read about, never wore a long black leather trench coat nor an expression of extreme ferocity, not even when the dwarfs forgot to put the toilet seat down.   

‘Stop,’ yelled the first dwarf.  ‘She’s got me.’  The crowd of dwarfs halted and headed back towards Tamar reluctantly, swinging their axes nevertheless in a determined fashion.