Pure Dead Wicked Read Online Free PDF Page B

daughter. Abandoned. Alone in an empty StregaSchloss.
    Seeing his sister’s eyes fill with tears, Titus relented. “We can come back, Pan. Don’t panic. Rats can look after themselves, and we can keep on popping in with food for them.” He patted her awkwardly on the back, dropping a cake box as he did so. Its lid fell off, and a large scone rolled out and bowled along the hall floor. “There,” he said. “That’ll keep them going for
ages
. Now come on, we have to go.”
    Propelling his sister outside, Titus pushed her toward the taxi and then returned to close the front door. With a mournful groan of rusty hinges, it slammed shut behind him.

Terminus Undone
    S ilence descended on StregaSchloss. Dust began to settle in the great hall, eddying and swirling in the drafts blowing down through the hastily mended library ceiling. A tap dripped in the kitchen sink and a clock on the mantelpiece slowly wound down. Below it, in the firebox of the range, coals turned from red to ashy gray. Degree by degree, the temperature dropped as StregaSchloss went into hibernation.
    In her nest of shredded newspaper in the pantry, Multitudina, the free-range rat, snored faintly. Curled between her mother’s front paws, Terminus opened one yellow eye and pulled Multitudina’s whiskers. Hard.
    â€œOw!”
squeaked Multitudina. “What was that for?”
    â€œHungry,” muttered Terminus. “Bigger snacks,
now
.”
    â€œHeavens, child,” said Multitudina, struggling to her feet and gazing at her fuzzy pink offspring with dislike, “you’ve a lot to learn about manners. What’s the magic word? P—p—p—?” she prompted.
    The ratlet raked her mother with an incredulous stare and yawned. “Want it,” she stated baldly. “Food. Now.”
    Multitudina sighed. Never, never, never again, she vowed for the hundredth time. No more babies, ever. “You’re big enough to look after yourself,” she growled at her daughter. “Don’t lie there demanding room service. Show some independence. Have you ever thought of finding a place of your own? I’ll help you pack,” she added hopefully.
    Terminus ignored this. Her nose twitched. She could smell something. Something edible. Throwing caution to the wind, she ran out of the pantry and found herself in the wide-open spaces of the kitchen floor. The kitchen table towered above her, its four huge legs leading up to unimaginable heights, its checked tablecloth draped . . . just . . . within . . . reach.
    Swinging wildly on a corner, Terminus slowly clawed her way upward, paw over paw, claws digging into the loosely woven fabric. Inelegantly, she dragged herself onto the tabletop like an exhausted swimmer emerging from the deep end of a pool. For a while, she lay beached and panting on the tablecloth, then her greed reasserted itself. She stood on her hind legs and surveyed the kitchen from the vantage of the high tabletop plateau, mentally logging the fact that the tablecloth was strewn with little bread boulders, puddles of cow juice, and little smears of bee-sticky. Unable to resist the opportunity, she climbed onto the rim of an abandoned milk jug and yelled in the direction of the pantry, “Yoo-hoo, O wrinkly one! Bet you’re too old, fat, and smelly to catch me before I eat this lot!”
    From high above the ratlet’s head, a husky voice drawled, “I have to agree. Your mother is indeed way too crumpled, ancient, and odiferous to halt you in mid-glut, but
I’m
not.”
    And before Terminus could turn her head to discover the source of this boast, something the size of a tennis ball dropped down from the ceiling and drop-kicked her into the milk jug.
    The ratlet came up for air, thrashing and choking, milky bubbles inflating on the end of her nose, her whiskers dripping white. Through a film of milk, Terminus peered up to the rim of the jug. What she saw was