Part 21 (1/2)

'Nice minotaur,' I said soothingly, slowly reaching for my automatic which had fallen on the gra.s.s beside me, 'good minotaur.'

He took a step closer, his hoofs making deep impressions in the gra.s.s. He stared at me and breathed out heavily through his nostrils, blowing tendrils of mucus into the air. He took another step, his deep-set yellow eyes staring into mine with an expression of loathing. My hand closed around the b.u.t.t of my automatic as the minotaur bent closer and put out a large clawed hand. I moved the gun slowly back towards me as the minotaur reached down and ... picked up Snell's hat. He turned it over in his claws and licked the brim with a tongue the size of my forearm. I had seen enough. I levelled my automatic and pulled the trigger at the same time as the minotaur's hand caught in the toggle and activated the Eject-O-Hat. The mythological man-beast vanished with a loud detonation as my gun went off, the shot whistling harmlessly through the air.

I breathed a sigh of relief but quickly rolled aside because, with a loud whoos.h.i.+ng noise, a packing case fell from the heavens and landed with a crash right where I had lain. The case had 'Property of Jurisfiction' stencilled on it and had split open to reveal ... dictionaries dictionaries.

Another case landed close by, then a third and a fourth. Before I had time to even begin to figure out what was happening, Bradshaw had reappeared.

'Why didn't you jump, you little fool?'

'My hat failed!'

'And Snell?'

'Inside.'

Bradshaw pulled on his MV mask and rushed off into the building as I took refuge from the packing cases of dictionaries which were falling with increased rapidity. Harris Tweed appeared and barked orders at the small army of Mrs Danvers that had materialised with him. They were all wearing identical black dresses high-b.u.t.toned to the collar, which only served to make their pale skin seem even whiter, their hollow eyes more sinister. They moved slowly, but purposefully, and began to stack, one by one, the dictionaries against the castle keep.

'Where's the minotaur?' asked Havisham, who suddenly appeared close by.

I told her he had ejected with Snell's fedora and she vanished without another word.

Bradshaw reappeared from the keep, dragging Snell behind him. The rubber on Akrid's MV mask had turned to blubber blubber, his suit to soot soot. Bradshaw removed him from Sword of the Zen.o.bians Sword of the Zen.o.bians to the Jurisfiction sickbay just as Miss Havisham returned. We watched together as the stacked dictionaries rose around the remains of Perkins' laboratory, twenty foot thick at the base, rising to a dome like a sugarloaf over the castle keep. It might have taken a long time but there were many Mrs Danvers, they were highly organised, and they had an inexhaustible supply of dictionaries. to the Jurisfiction sickbay just as Miss Havisham returned. We watched together as the stacked dictionaries rose around the remains of Perkins' laboratory, twenty foot thick at the base, rising to a dome like a sugarloaf over the castle keep. It might have taken a long time but there were many Mrs Danvers, they were highly organised, and they had an inexhaustible supply of dictionaries.

'Find the minotaur?' I asked Havisham.

'Long gone,' she replied. 'There will be h.e.l.l to pay about this, I a.s.sure you!'

When our carrots had returned to being crunchy vegetables, and the last vestiges of parrotness had been removed, Havisham and I pulled off our vyrus masks and tossed them in a heap the dictionary filters were almost worn out.

'What happens now?' I asked.

'It is torched,' replied Tweed, who was close by. 'It is the only way to destroy the vyrus.'

'What about the evidence?' I asked.

'Evidence?' echoed Tweed. 'Evidence of what?'

'Perkins,' I replied. 'We don't know the full details of his death.'

'I think we can safely say he was killed and eaten by the minotaur,' said Tweed pointedly. 'It's too dangerous to go back in, even if we wanted to. I'd rather torch this now than risk spreading the vyrus and having to demolish the whole book and everything in it do you know how many creatures live in here?'

He lit a flare.

'You'd better stand clear.'

The DanverClones were leaving now, vanis.h.i.+ng with a faint pop pop, back to wherever they had been pulled from. Bradshaw and I withdrew as Tweed threw the flare on the pile of dictionaries. They burst into flames and were soon so hot that we had to withdraw to the gatehouse, the black smoke that billowed into the sky taking with it the remnants of the vyrus and the evidence of Perkins' murder. Because I was sure it was was murder. When we walked into the vault I had noticed that the key was missing from its hook. murder. When we walked into the vault I had noticed that the key was missing from its hook.

Someone had let the minotaur out.

18.

Snell Rest in Peece and Lucy Deane 'I didn't notice it straight away but Vernham, Nelly and Lucy all had the same surname: Deane. They weren't related. In the Outland this happens all the time but in fiction it is rare; the problem is aggressively attacked by the Echolocators Echolocators (q.v.), who insist that no two people in the same book have the same name. I learned years later that Hemingway once wrote a book that was demolished because he insisted that every single one of the eight characters was named Geoff.' (q.v.), who insist that no two people in the same book have the same name. I learned years later that Hemingway once wrote a book that was demolished because he insisted that every single one of the eight characters was named Geoff.'

The minotaur had given Havisham the slip and was last seen heading towards the works of Zane Grey; the semi-bovine wasn't stupid he knew we'd have trouble finding him amongst a cattle drive. Snell lasted another three hours. He was kept in an isolation tent made of fine plastic sheeting that had been over-printed with pages from the Oxford English Dictionary. We were in the sickbay of the Anti-mispeling Fast Response Group. At the first sign of any deviant mispeling, thousands of these volumes were s.h.i.+pped to the infected book and set up as barrages either side of the chapter. The barrage was then moved in, paragraph by paragraph, until the vyrus was forced into a single sentence, then a word, then smothered completely. Fire was not an option in a published work; they had tried it once in Samuel Pepys' Diary and burnt down half of London.

'Does he have any family?' I asked.

'Snell was a loner detective, Miss Next,' explained the doctor. 'Perkins was his only family.'

'Is it safe to go up to him?'

'Yes but be prepared for some mispelings.'

I sat by his bed while Havisham stood and spoke quietly with the doctor. Snell lay on his back and was breathing with small shallow gasps, the pulse on his neck racing it wouldn't be long before the vyrus took him away and he knew it. I leaned closer and held his hand through the sheeting. His complexion was pail, his breething laboured, his skein covered in painful and unsightly green pastilles. As I wotched, his dry slips tried to foam worlds but all he could torque was ninsense.

'Thirsty!' he squeeked. 'Wode Cone, udder whirled doughnut Trieste-!'

He grisped my arm with his fungers, made one last stringled cry before feeling bakwards, his life force deported from his pathotic misspelled boddy.

'He was a fine operative,' said Havisham as the doctor pulled the sheep over his head.

'What will happen to the Perkins & Snell series?'

'I'm not sure,' she replied softly. 'Demolished, saved with new Generics I don't know.'

'What ho!' exclaimed Bradshaw, appearing from nowhere. 'Is he-?'

'I'm afraid so,' replied Havisham.

'Snell was one of the best,' murmured Bradshaw sadly. 'Did he say anything before he died?'

'Nothing coherent.'

'Hmm. The Bellman wanted a report on his death as soon as possible. What do you think?'

He handed Havisham a sheet of paper and she read: 'Minotaur escapes, finds captor, eats captor, captor dies. Horse mispeled in struggle. Colleague dies attempting rescue. Minotaur escapes.'

She turned over the piece of paper but it was blank on the other side.

'That's it?'

'I didn't want it to get boring,' replied Bradshaw, 'and the Bellman wanted it as simple as possible. I think he's got Libris breathing down his neck. The investigation of a Jurisfiction agent so close to the launch of UltraWord will make the Council of Genres jittery as h.e.l.l.'

Miss Havisham handed the report back to Bradshaw.

'Perhaps, Commander, you should lose that report in the pending tray.'