Chapter 15 - Aftermath
The Temple of the Brotherhood of the Orb smouldered, as coals and burning chunks of incense blackened and charred the wooden floor around them. All the Brothers able to run had fled, leaving Lady Margolotta alone with their erstwhile captives. She gave a brief contemptuous look at the statues, the altar and the pentagram, then she stepped neatly across the silver marks to lift the young woman in the underwired white nightdress from the altar and carry her from the room. A moment later she returned, and collected the unconscious Spike from his position dangling half in and half out of the now empty censer. Moments passed and then she entered again, to lift the supine form of Count Boris from the threshold. After a last backwards look at the temple she made an annoyed 'tchah' under her breath and, Count Boris slung neatly across her shoulder, stepped over the pentagram a second time, to scoop up the trussed cockerel from the rapidly heating altar.
"Thank the Dark Lord no one saw me do that!" she said, and she exited for the third time, and all was silence.
After a cautious interval, the Death of Rats stepped out of the shadows, watching as the fire crept towards Mr Winkelson's Gladstone bag, and the circle of head fetishes, bones, and dried and desiccated furry bodies that lay in a circle around it. Soon the flames licked a wisp of hair, and then it caught with a roar, and with a greedy crackle began to consume the objects laid there, and then the bag itself. The leather blackened and cracked, and then the bag exploded in a massive blue fireball of released magical energy. The Death of Rats stepped forward. Emerging from the smoke was a shrunken, bald and bedraggled succession of rats, cats, rabbits, mice and rarer creatures, blinking painfully and stretching cramped limbs. As they moved away from the blue smoke they gradually filled out and became plumper, their fur bristled and their eyes darkened and began to shine. The first rat in the line stopped in front of him, the others jostling behind. "Squeak?"
"SQUEAK," the Death of Rats confirmed. He raised his scythe and pointed, gently. Then he took his place at the head of the line of tiny creatures and walked away into the darkness, his latest charges following in an obedient train behind him.
Over by the shattered door, the raven hopped from leg to leg, agitated. "Is no one going to move this bleedin' door?" he cried. "There's two perfectly good eyeballs going to waste under here, you know!"
"Go away," cried a desperate voice from beneath the woodwork. "I'm not dead, you bloodsucker! Help!" the Brother cried into the darkness, "Heeeeelp!"
Vimes stared at the two Buffy Botts in front of him. Except one of them insisted she was Buffy Summers, so presumably she was married. What kind of insane parents would give their identical twin daughters the same first name was a mystery that would haunt him for some time to come, however. Still, at least Buffy number two seemed to have her head screwed on straight. He just needed to deal with the crowd in front of him, and the one that had followed behind, then solve the mystery of the crushed zombie troll, and he thought they might have a very interesting chat.
"As soon as he reached the balcony he just went nuts," said Buffy, glossing over how she and the zombie had arrived at the balcony in the first place.
"Oh, excellent!" said an enthusiastic voice. A particularly spotty and Adam's-appled apprentice wizard stepped forward. "Protection spell did the trick, then," he said proudly.
"Hello, Mr Jeavons, is it? Set a protection spell, did we sir?" Vimes opened his notebook, and licked his pencil. Mr Jeavons swallowed, suddenly nervous.
"Well, yes, I mean to say." He rallied. "We jolly well did. And it worked." He waved at Porphyry, draped over the spotlight.
"And what was the precise nature and purpose of this spell that you admit here in black and white that you set, would you say?" Vimes held his pencil poised over the page.
Jeavons hesitated, looking for a trap. "To protect the tower, as I said. From vandals, and, er, people stealing the lead, and so on. It sends the fellow mad. Damned effective spell." He puffed up his chest, and his fellow students nodded approval.
"I see, sir." Vimes began to write. "So, the purpose of the spell is to protect the fabric of the tower from thieves and vandals, is that right?"
"Right." Jeavons looked sideways at the wreckage, and a slightly worried expression began to dawn on his face.
"Whereas, the effect of the spell has in fact been to result in the almost entire demolition of the fourth floor balcony, structural damage to the lower floors caused by falling debris, including one stone troll zombie, and the destruction of your bloody big lantern, which I expect was rather expensive?"
Vimes snapped his notebook shut, as Jeavons wilted, and began to edge back into the pack of his fellow students. "I see. Still, looking on the bright side, all the lead's still on the roof isn't it? I'll send a report to the Arch Chancellor tomorrow, and congratulate him on his security arrangements." Vimes smiled a shark's smile. That was the sort of note to Ridcully that he actually enjoyed writing.
"Right now," he turned and looked at Angua and Detritus. "We're all going back to the Watch House. Igor can take a look at your friend here, Bott - it'll be a 1challenge for him. And if he can be fixed up I'll put him in the nick for trespassing on University property, once I've checked to see if the undead can technically trespass." He nodded to the cluster of apprentice wizards. "Of course, since it's your defence spell that sent him nuts, and led to him falling off this tower, if he does he recover he may decide he wants to prosecute the University for damages. Should be interesting, either way. Detritus!" He pointed at the supine zombie troll, and Detritus lifted Porphyry effortlessly from the spotlight and strode off into the night.
Vimes shouldered his way through the throng of angrily protesting wizards and hangers-on, took Buffybot by the arm and began to march firmly away. Buffy followed, walking beside the so far silent woman sergeant, axe swinging moodily. She should have known none of this was going to be even remotely simple.
"They wanted you to assassinate both Vimes and Vetinari?" With a delicate twist of her lips Lady Margolotta managed to suggest that the Brotherhood's plan was distressingly lacking in both craft and subtlety.
Spike nodded, "And there's meant to be a dragon swooping around burning down houses, feasting on livestock and snatching up virgins - but they seem to have got a poor performer. She's here somewhere, but not getting down to the roasting, feasting and snatching."
"Hmmm, fermenting instability, and no doubt planning a coup. How ambitious of them. And how very foolish. I think we should visit Lord Vetinari, don't you?" She waved to Count Boris, who was sitting in a bath chair, his sore knee raised on a cushion, and his chest swathed in bandages. "We shall not be long, my dear Boris. Enjoy your barley water!" She turned to Spike, "Poor dear Count Boris, is visiting me for a rest cure. His papa thought a place ruled by the laws of the black ribbon would be a peaceful spot for him to calm his nerves a little. I fear he hasn't found it as refreshing as he expected."
Spike smirked at the Count, as Lady Margolotta turned to ring the bell pull summoning her carriage.
"As for this 'behaviour modification' chip that gave you such a nasty headache," said Lady Margolotta. "How very ... crude, and distasteful. And yet so very human."
"You've been neutered, sir!" exclaimed Count Boris from behind them. A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"Oh I can still kill vampires," said Spike, glaring meaningfully back at him.
"Now, now, gentlemen," Lady Margolotta wagged a finger. She frowned, "We must make quite sure that no human in the city gets to hear of this ... experiment. There are far too many prominent citizens who would think such a chip for vampires was a simply splendid idea."
"Don't tell anyone about the chip, gotcha," Spike rose, "though I don't see anyone in this city capable of making a micro chip. They're more at the hammer and chisel stage of chipping, seems to me."
Lady Margolotta placed a slim white hand on his shoulder. "My dear Mr Spike. You know humans. Once one of them has had an idea - however bad - how long, on average, is it before that idea is put into practice?"
Spike shrugged, "About five hundred years if he's Leonardo, but I get your drift. Ingenious buggers, aren't they? And most with not even two grains of common sense to rub together and keep 'em warm on a cold night. It's a miracle they don't blow themselves to kingdom come more often, really."
"Yes, murmured Lady Margolotta. "Isn't it fascinating?"
Spike pulled on his duster. "Of course, our little tin pot friend Buffybot has probably babbled about every single thing on her tiny processor board, by now, including my chip. Never shuts up, that girl. Yada yada yada. So me keeping schtum may not help that much."
Lady Margolotta stopped, becoming very still. "I've met her," she said distantly, "a very single minded young creature, I thought."
Spike shook his head. "Gawd, no. Natters night and day, about everything from Daniel Bedingfield to Girl Guide achievement badges, to the care and nurture of guinea pigs, to applied astro physics. All in one sentence sometimes. Drives me nuts - but what can you expect from a bot when it's being programmed by a babbler like Willow 'Gay Now' Rosenberg?" The look in Lady Margolotta's eye stopped him short, and he gave an embarrassed cough.
She turned away and stepped out into the darkened porch. He followed, closing the front door firmly on the distant figure of Count Boris. "And I'll just stop babbling myself now," he muttered, "since I'm making such a sad bloody spectacle of myself." He leapt athletically up the step and into the carriage behind her ladyship, resolving to keep his lip firmly buttoned, and his jaw firm, and to sit at an angle to her, so as to give her a proper chance to admire his very fine cheekbones. That should do the trick.
End chapter