The Brightonomicon (Brentford Book 8) (40 page)

And Norris nodded again.

‘Would you like me to get out and change the wheel?’

Norris was silent.

‘I will do it,’ I said. ‘All you have to do is open my door.’

Norris remained silent.

‘I thought not,’ I said. ‘Then you will have to do it yourself.’

‘I cannot,’ said Norris. ‘I cannot leave the car.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Really? That is a shame then, is it not? Perhaps the ghost of an AA van will pass this way.’

‘It won’t,’ said Norris.

‘Then it will have to be me. And I
will
do it, to maintain the balance of equipoise. If you let me out, I will do it for you in return.’

‘You’d just run away,’ said Norris.

‘I would not,’ I said. ‘I promise. See this wet, see this dry, cut my throat if I tell a lie.’

‘You’d be cutting your own throat,’ said Norris.

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Because,’ said Norris, ‘if I release you from the car and you break your side of the bargain, the curse will fall upon you.’

‘That I will never be able to get out of Lewes?’

‘Your bones will bleach as mine have done, and you will walk and walk for ever. And it’s far more miserable to walk than to drive, I assure you. Very hard on the bones of the feet.’ And he grinned me that terrible grin once again.

‘Let me out of the car,’ I said, ‘and I will change the wheel.’

‘Don’t think to break our bargain.’

‘I will not,’ I said.

And there was a click and my door opened and I stepped out from the car into November sunlight, which although not altogether warm was a considerable improvement on the graveyard chill within that Morris Minor.

‘There’s a jack in the boot,’ called Norris to me, ‘a screw-type jack and a nine-inch tommy bar.’

‘Norris,’ I said, and I raised my finger, ‘to use the popular parlance of the day, “sit on this and spin!”’

‘What?’ went Norris, a look of horror on his face. Which came rather easily to a bonehead.

‘This has been the most horrible night of my life,’ I said, ‘and you can fuck right off.’

Which was as much of a shock to me as it must have been to Norris.

And I turned away from the haunted Morris Minor and marched into the hotel. And once inside, I paused to look back, but the Morris had vanished away.

‘And good riddance to you,’ I said.

The manager on the front desk made a face at me and I marched into the bar.

There was no one drinking as it was too early, but Fangio was there. He stood behind the counter polishing an imaginary glass and whistling a tune that did not exist. I approached the counter.

‘Give me a drink,’ I said to Fange, and I sank on to a barstool. ‘No nonsense, no toot, any drink you have, as long as it is very alcoholic.’

Fange drew me a pint of Farmer’s Wife. I did not ask him anything about it.

‘You look knackered,’ said the barlord. ‘Party all night, did you?’

‘Anything but,’ and I drained much of my beer. ‘It was terrible. Horrible. Mr Hugo Rune is dead.’

‘Hugo Rune?’ said Fange. ‘Isn’t he an urban myth?’

‘Do not even think about it.’ I raised Mr Rune’s stout stick. ‘He is dead – I saw him die, it was awful.’

‘I’m truly sorry,’ said Fangio, ‘and I mean that most sincerely. I really liked the old fart. Does that mean that you will be settling his account at The Pub That Dare Not Speak It’s Name, which is what my bar is going to be named tomorrow?’

‘No, it does
not,’
I said. ‘And show some respect. Mr Rune was a great man – one-of-a-kind, a one-off. I do not think that his like will ever be seen again.’
^*

Fangio pulled himself a pint. ‘I’ll miss him,’ he said. ‘How did it happen?’

‘I do not want to talk about it now.’

‘No, I suppose not. Oh, one thing – a bunch of strange-looking women were in here earlier asking after you.’

‘What did you tell them?’ I asked.

‘That you weren’t here.’

‘Thanks for that.’

‘I gave them your address at Grand Parade.’

I groaned.

‘Oh, and the manager of the hotel is really upset. Apparently he saw the Pope on TV last night and he’s not too happy about Rune having deceived him. But I suppose that doesn’t matter now.’

‘It does not,’ I said.

‘Although you’ll have to settle the bill.’

I groaned again.

‘Although,’ said Fange, ‘I might see my way clear to letting you slip out of the fire exit.’

‘That would be brilliant,’ I said.

‘You’d better pay the manager, then.’

‘I will take you up on your offer.’ And I finished my beer.

‘I’ll put this on the Pope’s account,’ said Fange.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I will go up to the suite and salvage what I can and then you can let me slip away.’

‘See you later, then,’ said Fangio.

I went up the stairs with a heavy heart. I felt empty inside. I had no idea how I was going to carry on without Mr Rune and I was worried now about what might have happened to his body. Had those monstrous women done something hideous to it? Should I return to the castle and look? I could not just leave him lying there. Should I call the police? An ambulance? An undertaker? And what was I going to do without him? Where was I going to go? Find the Chronovision, certainly I would try to do that,
and
destroy it, too. But without Mr Rune, was that even possible? I was sick at heart.

And empty.

I found the room key and turned it in the lock. And I pushed open the door.

And then I smelled something and felt something, too – a terrible chill in the air. And I looked and I beheld and I became afeared. Because something sat at the breakfasting table.

Something I knew to be dead.

‘Ah, Rizla,’ said Mr Rune, ‘you took your time. I ordered two breakfasts, but had to eat yours as it was growing cold.’

PART III

‘Dead—’ I croaked and I staggered in the doorway. ‘You were
dead
—’

‘I am alive.’ And Mr Rune rose to my assistance. ‘You’re all done in,’ he said. ‘You need some food inside you. There’s a bit of toast left, I think.’

And I flung my arms around him (in a manly kind of way). ‘Alive,’ I cried. ‘Alive! I am so glad.’

‘Calm yourself, my friend.’ And Mr Rune patted at my head. ‘Your hair needs cutting,’ he said.

‘It
is
you.’ I looked up at him. ‘It really
is
you?’

Mr Rune guided me to a chair and set me down. ‘Do you still have it?’ he asked.

‘Have what?’

‘The map,’ said Mr Rune. ‘The map, of course.’

‘I do,’ I said. And I rootled about in my pockets.

‘And my stout stick also, how thoughtful.’

I found the map and handed it to Hugo Rune. ‘But how?’ I asked him. ‘Tell me how.’

Mr Rune poured coffee for me and I drank it. But he downed that last piece of toast.

‘I had to know,’ said he, ‘the location where the Chronovision is hidden, and it seemed the only way. I put my trust in you and you did not let me down. Bravo.’

‘But how?’ I asked once more. ‘I put my ear to your chest, but you had no heartbeat. You were dead. And whatever evil magic the count was up to would not have worked if you had not been dead.’

‘Exactly. It was the only way. The balance of equipoise must always be maintained and cursed is the man who dares to tamper with the scales. I stopped my heart temporarily using a technique taught to me by my very good friend the Dalai Lama, in return for me teaching him how to play darts. Stopping your own heart and putting yourself into a state of suspended animation is a dangerous and painful process and I could not have held out for long. It was well that you acted as promptly as you did, as promptly as I had hoped that you would.’ And Mr Rune studied the map.

‘Incredible,’ I said, as I finished my coffee. ‘Simply incredible.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t credit it,’ said Mr Rune, ‘if someone told it to me. I’d probably say that stopping your heart was naught but an urban myth.’

‘Please do not speak of
those,’
I said. ‘I have had my fill of them.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr Rune, looking up. ‘Your ride back to the hotel. Somewhat upsetting, that, I suppose.’

‘You know about
that?’

‘It took considerable skill for me to conjure up that nail to puncture the tyre of that ethereal Morris.’

I shook my head in some wonder.

‘And so we have it,’ said Mr Rune, tapping at the map with a
forefinger that was considerably larger than that of Norris the Morris-driver from Hell. ‘The location where the Chronovision is hidden.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I did take a look before I threatened to throw the map on to the bonfire, just in case I had to.’

‘Most professional. And so you know?’

‘Where it is hidden? Yes.’

‘Now we must acquire it. And fast.’

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘Ah?’ said Mr Rune.

‘Well, that might not be quite so easy as it sounds.’

‘And why might that be?’ Hugo Rune asked.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Firstly because it is hidden somewhere so frightful that few men living would ever dare to go to that place and seek it. And secondly, I am beginning to think, after what you just said regarding the balance of equipoise, that perhaps I was a little hasty when I did not fulfil my side of the bargain offered to me by Norris Styver in his Morris Minor.’

‘To whit?’ said Mr Rune.

‘To whit,’ I said, ‘that I do not think I can get out of Lewes.’

The Whitehawk Birdman

PART I

With the aid of Fangio, Mr Rune and I left the Hotel California by the rear fire exit, our beds still made, our bill, unpaid.

Leaving Lewes itself, however, proved to be somewhat more complicated. The walk from the station to the hotel that we had made the previous day had not been a long walk. It had been a walk-in-the-park kind of walk, although there was no park.

But the walk back …

‘Check the map once more, Rizla,’ cried Mr Rune, when after very much walking we found ourselves at the hotel’s rear exit once again. ‘This is thoroughly absurd.’

‘It is the curse,’ I told him. And I yawned as I told him, for I was very tired, having not slept all night, and having watched my bestest friend die and then having been chased by witches; having made my escape in Norris Styver’s Morris Minor, which included running over several of the witches (which in the cold light of day seemed a somewhat terrible thing to have done, no matter how extenuating the circumstances); then discovering that Norris was a dead corpse-thing; and finally escaping from
him,
but at the expense of being cursed never to leave the town of Lewes.

It
had
been a hard night and I was all in.

‘We will never get out alive,’ I further told Mr Rune. ‘You had best leave me here to wander these streets for ever and ever.’

‘Or we might just hail a cab.’

‘They do not have cabs in Lewes, although I did hear a tale of a Brighton cabbie who drove a fare here once and is still trying to find his way out of the one-way system. And anyways, calling a cab would do no good. The roads are all snarled up with traffic – first-time visitors to the fireworks last night trying in vain to get home. Go, save yourself. Leave me here to die.’

Mr Rune raised his stout stick. Then he lowered it again. ‘It
has
been a difficult night for you, young Rizla,’ he said, ‘and you acquitted yourself bravely and loyally. If it is merely a matter of me voiding the curse of Norris Styver, then so be it. About turn.’

‘It is a waste of time,’ I said.

‘About turn,’ said Mr Rune, ‘about turn, walk backwards, close your eyes and lead us back to the station from memory.’