Abarat - Barker Clive - Страница 44

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Even so, he was in dire jeopardy: not from the hooks but from the eeriac's teeth. He did his best to hold the beast's two mouths away from his face with his hands, and for a while he succeeded. But the eeriac was strong. It was only a matter of time before the monster's needle teeth pierced him.

Candy waited no longer. As Wolfswinkel continued to applaud the horrible spectacle, Candy moved behind him. Then she pitched herself at his back.

Wolfswinkel turned at the last moment and raised his hand to strike her, but he was too late. She threw herself at him, and with a backward sweep of her hand, she knocked all of his hats off his head.

Wolfswinkel unleashed a howl of fury and went down on his knees in a desperate attempt to pick up the fallen hats. Candy did her best to prevent him from doing so by kicking them out of his hands.

From overhead there came a din like the sound of an enormous firecracker exploding.

Candy looked up to see that the eeriac was no longer threatening Malingo. With Wolfswinkel's power suddenly removed, the eeriac was diminishing. It had let Malingo go and was bouncing back and forth around the room like an over-filled balloon that had suddenly had the air let out of it. As it struck a solid object—a wall of books, the chandelier, a table, the floor—it erupted in a shower of black sparks, its body getting smaller each time it did so. Candy watched it for a moment, then she called up to Malingo, who was still hanging on the ceiling.

"Come on! Quickly!"

He dropped down to stand in front of her.

"Are you all right?" she said.

"It didn't hurt me." He smiled. "It tried, but—"

Candy smiled and caught hold of his clammy hand.

"We have to get out of here!" she said, and they ran toward the front door.

As they reached the door the beast slammed into the wall above it and released one last stinging rain of black sparks. Then it dropped to the ground between them. It was deflated to a tiny version of its former self. It writhed on the floor, its minuscule mouths still loosing that throaty hiss.

"Look away," Malingo said.

"Don't worry, I'm not squeamish," Candy said.

Malingo stamped his heel down on the eeriac, grinding out the last of its magical life. When he lifted his foot, the creature was no more than a dark stain on the carpet.

"Now we go," Malingo said.

He pulled open the top bolt of the front door. Candy took the middle and the bottom. "Wait. What about the Key?" she said to Malingo, as she threw open the door.

"This isn't the time to be worrying about that," Malingo said, as Kaspar's din became louder behind them.

Candy agreed with a little nod, and hand in hand they pitched themselves over the threshold.

They didn't look over their shoulders.

They just stumbled away from the house into the early night of Ninnyhammer, leaving Kaspar Wolfswinkel to roar his threats and his frustration at their backs.

" I' M FREE ," MALINGO YELLED as they ran. "I can't believe it! I'm free! I'm free !"

Suddenly he stopped running and picked Candy up in his arms, hugging her so tightly she could barely catch her breath.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he said, swinging her around. "You gave me the courage to do it! Whatever happens to me after this, I'll always be grateful to you."

Then he planted a loving, leathery kiss on her cheek and set her down again.

Candy was a bit flustered by all this. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been hugged or kissed. But she quickly regained her composure and turned the conversation back to practical matters.

"We're not out of the woods yet," she pointed out. "We need to put as much distance as we can between us and Ol' Banana Suit."

Malingo laughed. "Agreed," he said. "Do you have a boat?"

"No. And I don't suppose you have a luxury yacht in the vicinity?"

"No. 'Fraid not. How did you get here, by the way?"

"Well, there was this giant moth, you see—" she said.

"Giant moth?"

"Sent by Christopher Carrion."

"So the Lord of Midnight has been after you for a while. What's he so interested in?"

"Well, I had this Key—" Candy began. Then she stopped herself. "But that can't be why he was after me. He didn't even know I had the Key until Wolfswinkel found it."

"Do you know what this mystery key is for?"

"No, I don't. I don't think I was ever told."

Candy had no sooner spoken than she heard the voice of Kaspar Wolfswinkel. He was somewhere nearby, to judge by the way he whispered.

"Oh the Key ," he said. "You want to know what the Key is for…"

Malingo turned to Candy, the joy stripped from his face, terror replacing it. "He's here!" he said.

"It's all right," Candy murmured. "He's not going to hurt us."

As she spoke, she looked around for some sign of Wolfswinkel in the murk. But despite the eerie intimacy of his voice, he was nowhere to be seen.

"For your information," the magician went on, "the Key opens the Pyramids at Xuxux."

"Really?" Candy said, hoping to keep the chat going while she tried to locate Wolfswinkel. "The Pyramids, huh? Very interesting." She leaned close to Malingo. "Let's stand back to back," she said. "That way he can't creep up on us."

Malingo did as she suggested and carefully stepped into place, his back against Candy's.

"Believe me," Wolfswinkel went on boastfully, "I will be massively rewarded for what I did this Hour. I will have power on a scale that would be unimaginable to the likes of you—"

"Where is he ?" Candy whispered to Malingo. "He's close. I know he's close. Why can't we see him?"

"It's driving you crazy , isn't it?" Wolfswinkel said. "You're wondering if your pitiful senses are finally giving out? Perhaps you're going crazy. Have you thought about that? What is it the poet says? The mind cannot bear too much reality. You poor thing. It's the madhouse for you."

Malingo seized hold of Candy's hand. "You are not going crazy," he said.

"Then why does he sound so close to us?"

Malingo was trembling violently. "Because he is close," he said. "He's very close."

"But I don't see him," Candy said, still inspecting the landscape around them.

"Those hats of his give him a lot of powers," Malingo whispered. "He's just made himself invisible."

"So so he could be anywhere?" Candy said.

"I'm afraid so."

Armed with this new information Candy studied the landscape around them for some sign, however subtle, of their enemy's presence. A bush shaking as Wolfswinkel brushed past it; a pebble cracking beneath his invisible heel. But in the flickering, deceptive light from the fire-poles, it was difficult to be sure of anything. Was that Wolfswinkel moving through the grass off to her left, or just a trick of the light? Was that his breath, close to her ear, or simply the wind?

"I hate this," she whispered.

She'd no sooner spoken than there was a loud slapping sound, and Malingo stumbled forward, crying out. He instantly let go of Candy's hand and swung around, raising his fists like an old-fashioned boxer.

"He's right here !" Malingo warned. "He's right here ! He just hit the back of my—"

He didn't finish. There was another smack, and then a third, this one so violent that it threw Malingo to the ground. He put his hands over his head to protect himself from any further assault.

"Run, Candy!" he yelled. "Get out of here before he starts on you."

At this point Candy felt Kaspar's arms catching hold of her, and she was lifted up into the air. It was a supernatural strength Wolfswinkel was displaying: the source of it, of course, those ridiculous hats of his. Candy flailed around, hoping by chance to knock them off his head again, but he had her held in such a position that she was powerless to do so. "You're coming back to the house with me," he said. "Right now ."

Candy continued to struggle, but the man's strength was simply overwhelming. She started to yell for help, hoping there might be somebody out there on the murky slopes that could save them.

"It's a lost cause, I'm afraid," Wolfswinkel said, his invisible mouth inches from Candy's ear. His breath stank of rum.

Before Candy could reply, there was a lot of motion in the grass around them, and out of the darkened landscape came a number of tarrie-cats. It was not a small assembly. One minute the place was deserted; the next the beasts seemed to be all around them, their ears pricked, their eyes incandescent, watching Candy intently as she struggled in the arms of her invisible captor. As they approached, she remembered the horrendous crimes Wolfswinkel had claimed the cats had been responsible for. Had any of what he'd told her been true ? Had the tarrie-cats come here now to commit some new atrocity? To leap on poor Malingo while he lay on the ground and scratch out his eyes? Or to climb up her body and smother her?

As if their situation wasn't bad enough, it had now become incalculably worse.

Or so she thought.

But as the tarrie-cats advanced upon them, she felt Kaspar's hold on her weaken a little, and a few muttered words escaped his lips.

"You stay away from me…" he warned them.

The tarrie-cats ignored him. They simply continued their approach, their scrutiny frighteningly intense.

"Don't look at me that way," Wolfswinkel said to them.

Look at me ? Candy thought. What did he mean by look at me? He was invisible, surely. How could they possibly be seeing him? Suddenly it was clear to Candy.

"They can see you," she said to Kaspar.

The magician made no reply. But he didn't need to. His body was answering for him. He'd begun to shake, and his grip on Candy had weakened so much that she was able to slip free of him. She went immediately to tend to Malingo, who was still curled up on the ground.

"It's all right," she reassured him. "The tarrie-cats are here."

"That's good ?" he said, turning over to look at her. There was blood and fear on his face.

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