35

What Thursday Did Next

The news networks had a field day. The death of St Zvlkx so soon after his resurrection raised a few eyebrows, but the Windowmaker's somewhat bizarre accident while 'on assignment' became a sensation, supplanting even the upcoming Superhoop from the front pages. Incredibly, despite severe internal injuries and a devastating head wound, she didn't die. She was taken to St Septyk's, where they battled to stabilise her. Not from any great sense of moral duty, you understand, but because she could finger the sixty-seven or sixty-eight clients who had paid her to carry out her foul trade, and this was a prize the prosecutors were keen to claim. Within an hour of her coming out of surgery, three attempts by underworld bosses had been made to silence her for good. She was moved to the secure ward at the Kingsdown home for the criminally insane, and there she stayed, comatose, attached to a ventilator.

'Spike was right. I should have told him earlier,' I said to Gran, 'or tipped off the authorities or something!'

Granny Next was feeling a lot better today. Although greatly enfeebled by her advanced years, she had actually walked around for a bit this morning. When I arrived she had her reading glasses on and was surrounded by stacks of well-read tomes. The kind of thing one generally reads for study, and rarely for pleasure.

'But you didn't,' she replied, looking over the top of her spectacles, 'and your father knew you wouldn't when he told you.'

'He also said that I would decide whether she lived or died, but he was wrong — it's out of my hands now.' I rubbed my scalp and sighed. 'Poor Spike. He's taking it very badly.'

'Where is he?'

'Still being interviewed by SO-9. They got an agent down from London who's been after her for over ten years. I'd be there yet but for Flanker.'

'Flanker?' queried Gran. 'What did he do?'

'He came to thank me for leading SO-14 to a huge stockpile of hidden Danish literature.'

'I thought you were trying not to help them?'

I shrugged.

'So did I. How was I to know the Danish underground really were using the Australian Writers' Guild as a depository?'

'Did you tell them it was Kaine who had paid her to kill you?'

'No,' I said, looking down. 'I don't know who I can trust and the last thing I need is to be taken into protective custody or anything. If I'm not at the touchline tomorrow for the Superhoop, the Neanderthals won't play.'

'But there is good news, surely?'

'Yes,' I said, brightening somewhat. 'We got some Danish books out of the country, Hamlet is on the mend — and I got Landen back.'

Gran stared at me and lifted my face with her hand.

'For good''

I looked down at my wedding ring.

'Twenty-four hours and counting.'

'They did the same to me.' Gran sighed, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes with a bony hand. 'We were very happy for over forty years until he was taken away again — this time in a more natural and inevitable way. And that was over thirty years ago.'

She fell silent for a moment, and to distract her I told her about St Zvlkx, his death and his Revealments, and how little of it made any sense. Time-travelling paradoxes tended to make my head spin.

'Sometimes,' said Gran, holding up the cover of the Swindon Evening Globe, 'the facts are all in front of us — we just have to get them in the right order.'

I took the picture and stared at it. It had been taken a few seconds after the piano stool fell on Cindy. I hadn't realised how far the wreckage of the Steinway had scattered. A little way down the road the lonely figure of Zvlkx was still lying on the pavement, abandoned in the drama.

'Can I keep this?'

'Of course. Be careful, my dear — remember that your father can't warn you of every single one of your potential demises — invulnerability is reserved only for superheroes. The croquet final is far from won and anything can happen in the next twenty-four hours.'

I thanked her for her kind words, plumped up her pillows for her and then departed.

'A Neanderthal defence?' repeated Aubrey and Alf when I found them taking 'pegging out' practice at the croquet stadium. They had threatened to fire me if I didn't tell them what I was up to.

'Of course, any team would spend millions trying to get a Neanderthal on the side — but they just won't do it.'

'I've already got them. You can't pay them and I really don't know how they will work as a team with humans — I get the feeling that they'll be a team of their own within your team.'

'I don't care,' said Aubrey, leaning on his mallet and sweeping a hand in the direction of the squad. 'I was fooling myself. Biffo's too old, Smudger has a drink problem and Snake is mentally unstable. George is okay and I can handle myself but a fresh crop of talent has infused the Whackers' team. They'll be fielding people like "Bonecrusher" McSneed.'

He wasn't kidding. A mysterious benefactor — probably Goliath — had given a vast amount of money to the Whackers. Enough for them to buy almost anyone they wanted. Goliath were taking no chances that the seventh Revealment would be fulfilled.

'So we're still in the game with five Thais?'

'Yes,' said Aubrey with a smile, 'we're still in the game.'

I dropped in to see Mum on the way home, ostensibly to take Hamlet and the dodos round to Landen's place. I found my mother in the kitchen with Bismarck, who seemed to be in the middle of telling her a joke.

'. . . and then the white horse he says: "What, Erich?'"

'Oh, Herr B!' said my mother, giggling and slapping him on the shoulder. 'You are a wag!'

She noticed me standing there.

'Thursday! Are you okay? I heard on the radio there was some sort of accident involving a piano . . .'

'I'm fine, Mum, really.' I stared coldly at the Prussian Chancellor, who, I had decided, was taking liberties with my mother's affections. 'Good afternoon, Herr Bismarck. So, you haven't sorted out the Schleswig-Holstein question yet?'

'I am waiting still for the Danish prime minister,' replied Bismarck, rising to greet me, 'but I am growing impatient.'

'I expect him very soon, Herr Bismarck,' said my mother, putting the kettle on the stove. 'Would you like a cup of tea while you're waiting?'

He bowed politely again.

'Only if Battenberg cake we will be having.'

'I'm sure there's a bit left over if that naughty Mr Hamlet hasn't eaten it!' Her face dropped when she discovered that, indeed, naughty Mr Hamlet had eaten it. 'Oh dear! Would you like an almond slice instead?'

Bismarck's eyebrows twitched angrily.

'Everywhere I turn the Danish are mocking my person and the German confederation,' he intoned angrily, smacking his fist into his open palm. 'The incorporation of the Duchy of Schleswig into the Danish state overlooked I might have, but personal Battenberg insult I will not. It is war!'

'Hang on a minute, Otto,' said my mother, who, having brought up a large family almost single-handed, was well placed to sort out the whole Battenberg-Schleswig-Holstein issue, 'I thought we'd agreed that you weren't going to invade Denmark?'

'That was then, this is now,' muttered the Chancellor, puffing out his chest so aggressively that one of his brass buttons shot across the room and struck Pickwick a glancing blow on the back of the head. 'Choice: Mr Hamlet for his behaviour apologises on behalf of Danish people, or we go to war!'

'He's talking to that nice conflict resolution man at the moment,' replied my mother in an anxious tone.

'Then it is war,' announced Bismarck, sitting down at the table and having an almond slice anyway. 'More talk is pointless. Return I wish to 1863.'

But then the door opened. It was Hamlet. He stared at us all and looked, well, different.

'Ah!' he said, drawing his sword. 'Bismarck! Your aggressive stance against Denmark is at an end. Prepare ... to die!'

The conflict resolution talk had obviously affected him deeply. Bismarck, unmoved by the sudden threat to his life, drew a pistol.

'So! Battenberg you finish behind my back, yes?'

And they might have killed one another there and then if Mum and I hadn't intervened.

'Hamlet!' I said. 'Killing Bismarck won't get your father back, now, will it?'

'Otto!' said Mum. 'Killing Hamlet won't alter the feelings of the Schleswiggers, now, will it?'

I took Hamlet into the hall and tried to explain why sudden retributive action might not be such a good idea after all.

'I disagree,' he said, swishing his sword through the air. 'The first thing I shall do when I get home is kill that murdering uncle of mine, marry Ophelia and take on Fortmbrass. Better still, I shall invade Norway in a pre-emptive bid, and then Sweden and — what's the one next to that?'

'Finland?'

'That's the one.'

He placed his left hand on his hip and lunged aggressively with his sword at some imaginary foe. Pickwick made the mistake of walking into the corridor at that precise moment and made a startled plooock noise as the point of Hamlet's rapier stopped two inches from her head. She looked unsteady for a moment, then fainted clean away.

'That conflict management specialist really taught me a thing or two, Miss Next. Apparently, my problem was an unresolved or latent conflict — the death of my father — that persists and festers in an individual — me. To face up to problems we must meet those conflicts head on and resolve them to the best of our ability!'

It was worse than I thought.

'So you won't pretend to be mad and talk a lot, then?'

'No need,' replied Hamlet, laughing. 'The time for talking is over. Polomus will be for the high jump, too. As soon as I marry his daughter he'll be fired as adviser and made chief librarian or something. Yes, we're going to have some changes around my play, I can tell you.'

'What about building tolerances between opponents for a longstanding peaceful and ultimately rewarding coexistence between the conflicting parties?'

'I think he was going to cover that in the second session. It doesn't matter. By this time tomorrow Hamlet will be a dynamic tale of one man's revenge and rise to power as the single greatest king Denmark has ever seen. It's the end of Hamlet the ditherer and the beginning of Hamlet the man of action! There's something rotten in the state of Denmark and Hamlet says. . . it's payback time!'

This was bad. I couldn't send him back until Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Shgakespeafe had sorted his play out, and in this state there was no saying what he was capable of. I had to think fast.

'Good idea, Hamlet. But before that I think you might like to know that Danish people are being insulted and maligned here in England, and that Kierkegaard, Andersen, Branner, Blixen and Farquitt are having their books burned.'

He went quiet and stared at me with dumbstruck horror in his eyes.

'I am doing what I can to stop this,' I went on, 'but—'

'Daphne's books are being burned?'

'You know of her?'

'Of course. I'm a big fan. We have to have something to do during those long winters at Elsinore. Mum's a big fan, too -although my uncle prefers Catherine Cookson. But enough talk,' he carried on, his post-prevarication non-hesitative brain clicking over rapidly, 'what shall we do about it?'

'Everything hinges on us winning the Superhoop tomorrow, but we need a show of force in case Kaine tries anything. Can you get together as many Danish supporters as you can?'

'Is it very important?'

'It could be vital.'

Hamlet's eyes flashed with steely resolution. He picked his skull off the hall table, placed a hand on my shoulder and struck a dramatic pose.

'By tomorrow morning, my friend, you will have more Danes than you know what to do with. But stay this idle chitter-chatter; I must away!'

And without another word he was out of the door. From all-talk-no-action he was now all-action-no-talk. I should never have brought him into the real world.

'By the way,' said Hamlet, who had popped his head back around the door, 'you won't tell Ophelia about Emma, will you?' 'My lips are sealed.'

I gathered up the dodos and popped them in the car, then drove home. I had called Landen to say I was unhurt soon after Cindy's accident. He said he'd known all along I'd come to no harm, and I promised that I'd avoid assassins where possible from now on. I couldn't pull up outside the house as there were at least three news vans, so I parked round the back, walked through the alleyway, nodded a greeting to Millon and walked across the back lawn to the French windows.

'Lipsum!' said Friday, running up to give me a hug. I picked him up as Alan sized up his new home, trying to work out the areas of highest potential mischief.

'There's a telegram for you on the table,' said Landen, 'and if you're feeling masochistic the press would love you to reiterate how the Mallets will win tomorrow.'

'Well, I'm not,' I replied, tearing open the telegram. 'How was your . . .'

My voice trailed off as I read the telegram. It was clear and to the point.

'Darling?' I called out.

'Yes?' came Landen's voice from upstairs.

'I have to go out.'

'Assassins?'

'No — megalomaniac tyrants keen on global domination.'

'Do you want me to wait up?'

'No, but Friday needs a bath — and don't forget behind the ears.'

36

Kaine versus Next

It was night when I arrived at Swindon Airpark's maintenance depot. Although airships still droned out into the night sky from the terminal opposite, this side of the field was deserted and empty, the workers long since punched out for the day. I showed my badge to Security then followed the signs along the perimeter road and passed a docked airship, its silvery flanks shimmering with the reflected moon. The eight-storey-high main doors of the gargantuan Hangar D were shut tight, but I soon found a black Mercedes sports car near an open side door, so I stopped a little way short and killed my engine and lights. I replaced the clip in my automatic with the spare that I had loaded with five eraserheads — the most I had managed to smuggle out of the BookWorld. I got out of the car, paused to listen and, hearing nothing, made my way quietly into the hangar.

Since the transcontinental 'thousand-footer' airships were built these days at the Zeppelinwerks in Germany, the only airship within the cathedral-sized hangar was a relatively small sixty-seater, halfway through construction and looking like a very spartan basket, its aluminium ribs held together with a delicate filigree of interconnecting struts, each riveted carefully to the next. It looked overly complex for something in essence so simple. I glanced around the lofty interior but of Kaine there was no sign. I pulled out my automatic, chambered the first eraserhead and released the safety catch.

'Kaine?'

No answer.

I heard a noise and whipped my gun towards where a part-completed engine nacelle was resting on some trestles. I cursed myself for being so jumpy and suddenly realised that I wished Bradshaw were with me. Then, I felt it — or at least, I smelt it. The lazy stench of death borne on a light breeze. I turned as a dark, fetid shape loomed rapidly towards me. I had a brief vision of some unearthly terror before I pulled the trigger and the hollow thud of my first eraserhead hit home. The hell-beast evaporated in a flurry of the individual letters that made up its existence. They fell about me with the light tinkling sound of Christmas decorations shattering.

I heard the sound of a single slow handclap and noticed the silhouette of Kaine standing behind the part-finished control gondola. I didn't pause for a moment and let fly a second eraser-head. In an instant Kaine invoked a minor character — a small man, with glasses — right in the path of the projectile, and he, not Kaine, was erased.

Yorrick moved into the light. He hadn't aged a day since I had seen him last. His complexion was unblemished and he didn't have a hair out of place. Only the finest described characters are indistinguishable from real people — the rest, and Kaine was among them, had a vague plasticity that belied their fictional origins.

'Enjoying yourself?' I asked him sarcastically.

'Oh yes,' he replied, giving me a faint smile.

He was a 'B' character in an 'A' role and had been elevated far beyond his capabilities — a child in control of a nation. Whether by virtue of Goliath or the ovinator or simply his fictional roots I wasn't sure, but what I did know was that he was dangerous in the real world and dangerous in the BookWorld. Anyone who could invoke hell-beasts at will was not to be ignored.

I fired again and the same thing happened. The character was different — from a costume drama, I think — but the effect was the same. Kaine was using expendable bit-parts as shields. I glanced nervously around, sensing a trap.

'You forget,' said Kaine, as he stared at me with his unblinking eyes, 'that I have had many years to hone my powers, and as you can see, nobodies from the Farquitt canon are ten a penny.'

'Murderer!'

Kaine laughed.

'You can't murder a fictional person, Thursday. If you could, every author would be behind bars!'

'You know what I mean,' I growled, beginning to move forward. If I could just grasp hold of him I could jump into fiction and take him with me. Kaine knew this and kept his distance.

'You're something of a pest, you know,' he carried on, 'and I really thought the Windowmaker would have been able to dispose of you so I wouldn't have to. Despite the woefully poor odds on Swindon winning tomorrow, I really can't risk Zvlkx's Revealment coming true, no matter how unlikely. And my friends at Goliath agree with me.'

'This place is not your place,' I told him, 'and you are messing with real people's lives. You were created to entertain, not to rule.'

'Have you any idea,' he carried on as we slowly encircled one another about the airship's unfinished control gondola, just what it's like being stuck as a B-9 character in a self-published novel?

Never being read, having two lines of dialogue and constantly being bettered by my inferiors?'

'What's wrong with the character exchange programme?' I asked, stalling for time.

'I tried. Do you know what the Council of Genres told me?'

'I'm all ears.'

'They told me to do the best with what I had. Well, I'm doing exactly that, Miss Next!'

'I have some swing with the council, Kaine. Surrender and I'll do the best I can for you.'

'Lies!' spat Kaine. 'Lies, lies, and more lies! You have no intention of helping me!'

I didn't deny it.

'Well,' he carried on, 'I said I needed to speak to you, and here it is: you've found out where I'm from, and despite my best efforts to retain all copies of At Long Last Lust there is still a possibility you might find a copy and delete me from within. I can't have that. So I wanted to give you the opportunity of entering into a mutually agreeable partnership. Something that will benefit both of us. Me in the corridors of power and you as head of any SpecOps division you want — or SpecOps itself, come to that.'

'I think you underestimate me,' I said quietly. 'The only deal I'm listening to tonight will be your unconditional surrender.'

'Oh, I didn't underestimate you at all,' continued the Chancellor with a slight smile. 'I only said that to give a Gorgon friend of mine enough time to creep up behind you. Have you met . . . Medusa, by the way?'

I heard a hissing noise behind me. The hairs on my neck rose and my heart beat faster. I looked down as I twisted and jumped to the side, resisting any temptation to glance at the naked and repellent creature that had been slinking towards me. It's difficult to hit a target that you are trying not to look at, and my fourth eraserhead impacted harmlessly on a gantry on the other side of the hangar. I stepped back, caught my foot on a piece of metal and collapsed backward, my gun skittering across the floor towards some packing cases. I swore and attempted to scrabble away from the mythological horror, only to have my ankle grasped by Medusa, whose head-snakes were now hissing angrily. I tried to kick out of her grasp but she had a grip like a vice. Her free hand grabbed my other ankle and then, cackling wildly, she crept her way up my body as I struggled in vain to push her away, her sharply nailed claws biting into my flesh and making me cry out in pain.

'Stare into my face!' screamed the Gorgon as we wrestled in the dust. 'Stare into my face and accept your destiny!' I kept my eyes averted as she pinned me against the cold concrete and then, when her bony and foul-smelling body was sitting on my chest, she cackled again and took hold of my head in both hands. I screamed and shut my eyes tight, gagging at her putrid breath. It was no escape. I felt her hands move on my face, her fingertips on my eyelids.

'Come along, Thursday, my love,' she screeched, the hissing of the snakes almost drowning her out, 'gaze into my soul and feel your body turn to stone—!'

I strained and cried out as her fingers pulled my eyelids open. I swivelled my eyes as low in their sockets as I could, desperate to stave off the inevitable, and was just beginning to see glimmers of light and the lower part of her body when there was the sound of steel being drawn from a scabbard and a soft whoop noise. Medusa fell limp and silent on my chest. I opened my eyes and pushed the severed head of the Gorgon into the shadows. I jumped up, slipped once in the pool of blood issuing from her headless corpse and ran backward, stumbling in my panic to get away.

'Well,' said a familiar voice, 'looks like I got here just in time!'

It was the Cat. He was sitting on an unfinished airship rib and was grinning wildly. He wasn't alone. Next to him stood a man. But it wasn't any ordinary man. He was tall — at least seven foot six and broad with it. He was dressed in rudimentary armour and grasped in his powerful hands a shield and sword that appeared to weigh almost nothing. He was a frightening warrior to behold; the sort of hero for whom epics are written — the likes of which we have no need of in our day and age. He was the most alpha of males — he was Beowulf. He made no sound, knees slightly bent in readiness, bloody sword moving elegantly in a slow figure-of-eight pattern.

'Good move, Mr Cat,' said Kaine sardonically, stepping from behind the gondola and facing us across the only open area in the hangar.

'You can end this right now, Mr Kaine,' said the Cat. 'Go back to your book and stay there — or face the consequences.'

'I choose not to,' he replied with an even smile, 'and since you have raised the stakes by invoking an eighth-century hero, I challenge you to a one-on-one invocation contest pitting my fictional champions against yours. You win and I stay forever in At Long Last Lust; I win and you leave me unmolested.'

I looked at the Cat, who was, for once, not smiling.

'Very well, Mr Kaine. I accept your challenge. Usual rules? One beast at a time and strictly no Krakens?'

'Yes, yes,' replied Kaine impatiently. He closed his eyes and with a wild shriek Grendel appeared and flew towards Beowulf, who expertly sliced it into eight more or less equal pieces.

'I think we got him riled,' whispered the Cat out of the corner of his mouth. 'That was a bad move — Beowulf always vanquishes Grendel.'

But Kaine didn't waste any more time and a moment later there was a living, breathing Tyrannosaurus rex tramping the concrete floor, fangs drooling with saliva. It whipped its tail angrily and knocked the engine nacelle on to its side.

'From The Lost World?' queried the Cat. 'Or Jurassic Park?'

'Neither,' replied Kaine. 'The Boy's Bumper Book of Dinosaurs.'

'Ooh!' replied the Cat. 'The non-fiction gambit, eh?'

Kaine clicked his fingers and the thunder lizard lunged forward as Beowulf went into the attack, sword flailing. I retreated towards the Cat and asked anxiously: 'This Beowulf isn't the original, is it?'

'Good lord, no, quite the reverse!'

It was just as well. Beowulf had made mincemeat of Grendel

but the Tyrannosaurus, in turn, made mincemeat of him. As the giant lizard slurped down the remnants of the warrior, the Cat hissed to me: 'I do so love these competitions!'

I wiped my scratched face with my handkerchief. I must say I couldn't really share the Cat's mischievous sense of glee, or enjoyment.

'What's our next move?' I asked him. 'Smaug the dragon?'

'No point. He'd invoke a Baggins to kill it. Perhaps it would be best to make a tactical retreat and introduce an Alan Quartermain with an elephant gun, but I'm late for my son's birthday party, so it's going to be ... him!'

There was another shimmer in the air about us and with a whiffling and a burbling, a bat-winged creature appeared. It had a long tail, reptilian feet, flaming eyes, huge sort of catchy hairy claws . . and was wearing a lilac-coloured tunic with matching socks.

The Tyrannosaurus looked up from its feast at the Jabberwock, who stared back at it while hovering in the air and making dangerous whiffling noises. It was about the same size as the dinosaur and went for it aggressively, jaws biting, claws catching. As the Cat, Kaine and I looked on, the Jabberwock and the Tyrannosaurus rolled around in mortal combat, tails flailing. At one point it looked as though Kaine's champion had the upper hand until the Jabberwock executed a manoeuvre known in wrestling circles as an 'aeroplane spin and body slam' that shook the ground. The giant lizard lay still, moving feebly. An animal that large does not need to fall from very high to break bones. The Jabberwock burbled contentedly to itself, doing a little triumphant two-step dance as he walked back over to us.