The Ghastly Exchange – Episode 16
After Virrellenta left, I returned to my room and sat on the edge of my bed, my stomach churning.
I had to stop her. But how?
There wasn’t anyone I could turn to for help. The only person who knew what kind of creature Virrellenta really was, was me.
I curled my hands into fists. There was no way I could take anyone else into my confidence. They would panic, and who knows what foolish things they’d do?
There was no doubt I was the only one who could be trusted to stay cool in a crisis.
So, what were my options?
I dimly recalled reading about heroes dealing with vampires by driving wooden stakes through their hearts while they slept. Vampires hunted at night, so presumably they slept during the day. But, where did Virrellenta sleep? On the other hand, what if a stake through the heart didn’t do the trick? What if it did nothing but annoy her?
The only sure way forward was to cast a spell. One that would turn her into a lizard, or a… a kitten or something. I ground my teeth. The trouble was, ever since I’d been knocked on the head when the four-poster bed had crash landed, I hadn’t been able to remember a single spell.
I expect you’ll be wondering at that seeing as only hours ago a spell had come from my lips and produced an ogre. The thing is… that spell hadn’t appeared in my mind in the usual way. I hadn’t visualised a page from my spellbook like I normally do. Instead, my thoughts had filled with a gaudy mauve mist and the spell had issued from my mouth without any help from me.
I suspected that had something to do with that interfering wizard, Wenzel, and his missing spells.
My brow creased. I didn’t have time to ponder about that. There were more important things to do, like go to my studio and take a look through my spellbook for a way to take care of Virrellenta.
The studio door’s hinges creaked as I opened it and furtively peeked into the corridor. There was no-one in sight. With another glance around, I stepped out and tiptoed past the empty rooms on the top floor of the keep, heading for the stairs.
The place had been built to impress and there were plenty of guest bedrooms, but I didn’t reckon Virrellenta would be snoozing in any of them. Based on what I could remember of those stories I’d read as a boy, vampires slept in crypts. Even so, it seemed safer to creep along as silent as a mouse, while telling myself I wasn’t doing so because I was afraid, but because I didn’t want to alert anyone else to what I was up to. Like Trewla for example.
She was bound to ask awkward questions.
On the ground floor, I snuck past the laboratory and the kitchen, and took the spiral stairs to my studio at the top of the tower. As I’ve mentioned before, due to a magic-induced disagreement between gravity and reality, when you take the stairs to my studio you seem to be going down them even though you’re actually climbing up them.
But that didn’t bother me. I was used to it. The thing that did concern me, though, was bumping into the countess. What if I was wrong about her sleeping during the day? What if instead she was roaming the castle?
I gave a little sigh of relief as I reached my destination without encountering her.
As I stepped into my studio, I experienced the momentary disorientation which grips everyone when leaving the stairs and the normal directions of up and down resume.
In that moment of confusion, something smashed into my back between my shoulder blades. Staggering like a drunkard, I toppled face down onto the floor, wheezing for breath.
Half senseless, spots spinning in front of my eyes, my arms were pulled behind my back. By the time I’d recovered my senses, my wrists had been tied.
“Ha!” screeched a voice. “Got you, Igor!”
I rolled onto my back, my slowness of thought evaporating, and lifted my head.
Grimmon was waving around a wooden club almost as big as himself, hopping from one foot to the other, grinning at me.
“I’m not Igor, you fool,” I said with a groan. “I’m me!”
“Don’t give me that nonsense.” Grimmon patted his chest. “I know you’re Igor!”
“No! I really am me! Igor’s mind has gone! Mine is back in my body!”
“Is that the best you can do?” Grimmon shook his head. “I suppose you’re going to tell me it just sort of happened by itself. Without your mind-swap device, I mean. Which, by the way, I know you didn’t bring with you.”
I struggled up into a sitting position. “It did happen without Igor’s infernal machine! When the castle moved, my head was on the end of the viaduct… and all the magic sloshing around must have undone the mind swap.” A thought occurred to me. “And I have a bone to pick with you, you beastly traitor! When the spell started, you ran into the castle and left me lying injured and helpless on the road!”
His eyebrows lifted. I could see the cogs turning in his head as he realised Igor wouldn’t have known that.
But his suspicious nature won, and he narrowed his eyes. “If you are who you say you are, then answer me this: how did we travel to the castle?”
“In a donkey cart.” I rolled my eyes. “Well, until you drove it into a ditch and made me sprain my ankle.”
Grimmon scratched his nose. “So… you really aren’t Igor?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” I glared at him. “And also that I can’t believe you abandoned me! If I hadn’t dragged myself to the viaduct, I’d still be stuck in Igor’s body on that world!”
“I didn’t abandon you.” He looked down and shuffled his feet. “You’d lost your stick, and I couldn’t carry you on my own, so I went to get help. I tried my hardest, but the castle moved before I could find anyone.”
It almost sounded plausible, but I know what a self-serving hypocrite he is. I opened my mouth to say so, but stopped myself. For now, I needed him on my side.
“At least you tried,” I said, my tone dripping with fake sincerity. “But enough of that. I have business to attend to. Untie me, there’s a good chap.”
“What business?” said Grimmon, dropping the club and fiddling with my bindings.
“I need to find a spell to get rid of Virrellenta before tonight! She’s spitting mad the castle’s moved to an uninhabited island. There are no locals for her to feed on so at sundown she’s going to slake her evil thirst on Trewla instead!”
“How do you know all this?”
“Virrellenta told me so herself. She still thinks I’m Igor.”
Grimmon’s brow wrinkled. “Have you warned Trewla yet?”
“No! She might do something silly. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
The goblin raised an eyebrow at that, but he kept his mouth shut and finished untying me.
When my hands were free, I went over to my desk and was pleased to see my spellbook was still in its customary position. I’d worried Igor might have thrown it out.
I picked it up and leafed through its pages, mumbling as I went.
“Swarm of bees…? No. Melted candle wax…? Not really. Shrinking…” I turned the book sideways to better view the illustration. My eyebrows shot up. “No. Definitely not.”
I turned to the next page and a small sheet of paper fluttered down to the desk. That was odd. I hadn’t put it in there.
“What’s this?” I said, picking it up.
A sentence was written across it in neat handwriting. I read it aloud. “Look in the desk drawer.”
“Eh?” said Grimmon. “I take it you didn’t write that?”
“No.” I frowned and drew open the drawer.
I’d half expected to find a wooden stake and mallet resting on the papers in the drawer, but instead my eyes were greeted by a crystal mounted on a base of brass gears and springs. A label attached to it read: “Twist to activate”.
Grimmon stood on tiptoe and peered into the drawer.
“It looks like something Igor would make.” He grabbed hold of the device and held it close to his face. “What does it do?”
“Put it down! That’s the last thing we need.” I turned my attention back to my spell book.
While I continued to search for an appropriate spell, Grimmon examined the device. I sneered, and ignored him. The damned thing wouldn’t be of any use to us.
I turned a page and gasped. Stabbing my finger at the illustration, I said, “This one will do nicely! Ha! The countess won’t stand a chance!”
I committed the spell to memory then slammed the spellbook shut, laid it on the desk, and strode for the stairs.
“Follow me,” I said. “We have preparations to make.”
*** Continued in Episode 17 ***
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