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your hands on your head.'
'Leave
Cardenio here with me if only until tomorrow,' added Kaine, changing tack
abruptly and forcing a smile. 'In return I can give you anything you want.
Power, cash an earldom, Cornwall, character exchange into Hemingway you
name it, Kaine will provide!'
'You have nothing of any value to bargain with, Mr Kaine,' Tweed told him, his
hand tightening on his pistol. 'For the last time '
But Kaine had no intention of being taken, alive or otherwise. He cursed us
both to a painful excursion in the twelfth circle of hell and melted from view
as Tweed fired. The slug buried itself harmlessly in a complete set of bound
Punch magazines. At the same time the steel doors burst open. But instead of a
pestilential hell-beast conjured from the depths of mankind's most depraved
thoughts only an icy rush of air entered, bringing with it the lingering smell
of death. The Questing Beast had vanished as quickly as its master, back to
the oral tradition and any books unfortunate enough to feature it.
'Cat!' yelled Tweed as he reholstered his gun. 'We've got a PageRunner. I need
a bookhound ASAP!'
26
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Volescamper sat down on a handy chair and looked bewildered.
'You mean & ' he stammered incredulously. 'Look here, Kaine was ?'
'Entirely fictional yes,' I replied, laying a hand on his shoulder.
'You mean
Cardenio didn't belong to my grandfather's library after all?' he asked, his
confusion giving way to sadness.
'I'm sorry, Volescamper,' I told him. 'Kaine stole the manuscript. He used
your library as a front.'
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Jasper Fforde - Thursday Next 02 - Lost in a Good Book
'And if I were you,' added Tweed in a less kindly aside, 'I should just go
upstairs and pretend you slept all through this. You never saw us, never heard
us, you know nothing of what happened here.'
'Bingo!' cried Raffles as the handle on the safe turned, shattering the frozen
lock inside and creaking open. Raffles handed me the manuscript before he and
Bunny vanished back to their own book with only the thanks of Jurisfiction to
show for the night's efforts a valuable commodity on their side of the law.
I passed
Cardenio to Tweed. He rested a reverential hand on the returned play and
smiled a rare smile.
'An undedicated dialogue trap, Next quick thinking. Who knows, we might make
a Jurisfiction agent of you yet!'
'Well, thank '
' Cat!' bellowed Tweed again. 'Where's that blasted bookhound?'
27
A large and sad-looking bloodhound appeared from nowhere, looked at us both
lugubriously, made a sort of hopeless doggy-sigh and then started to sniff the
books scattered on the floor in a professional manner.
Tweed snapped a lead on the dog's collar.
'If I was the sort of person to apologise ' he conceded, straining at the
leash of the bookhound which had locked on to the scent of one of Kaine's
expletives, ' I would. Join me in the hunt for Kaine?'
It was tempting but I remembered Dad's prediction.
'I have to save the world tomorrow,' I announced, surprising myself by just
how matter-of-fact I sounded.
Tweed didn't seem in the least surprised.
'Oh!' he said. 'Well, another time, then. On, sir, seek, away!'
The bookhound gave an excited bark and leaped forward; Tweed hung grimly on to
the leash and they both disappeared into fine mist and the smell of hot paper.
'I suppose,' said Lord Volescamper, interrupting the silence in a glum voice,
'that this means I won't be in
Kaine's government after all?'
'Politics is overrated,' I told him.
'Perhaps you're right,' he agreed, getting up. 'Well, goodnight, Miss Next. I
didn't see anything, didn't hear anything, is that right?'
'Nothing at all.'
Volescamper sighed and looked at the shattered remains of the interior of his
house. He picked his way to the twisted steel door and turned to face me.
'Always was a heavy sleeper. Look here, pop round for tea and scones one day,
why don't you?'
'Thank you, sir. I shall. Goodnight.'
Volescamper gave me a desultory wave and was soon out of sight. I smiled to
myself at the revelation of
Kaine's fictional identity; I reckoned that not being a real person had to
present a pretty good obstacle to being Prime Minister, but I couldn't help
wondering just how much power he did wield within the world of fiction and
whether I had heard the last of him after all, the Whig party was still in
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existence, with or without their leader. Still, Tweed was a professional, and
I had other things to deal with.
I looked down the corridor, past the twisted doors. The front of Vole Towers
was virtually destroyed; the ceiling had collapsed and rubble lay strewn
around where the Glatisant had fought the very finest of SO-
14. I picked my way through the twisted door and down the corridor where deep
gouges had been scraped in the floor and walls by the leaden hide of the
beast. The remaining SpecOps 14 operatives had all pulled
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Jasper Fforde - Thursday Next 02 - Lost in a Good Book back to regroup and I
slipped out in the confusion. Nine good men fell to the Questing Beast that
night.
The officers would all be awarded the SpecOps Star for 'Conspicuous bravery in
the face of Other'.
As I walked along the gravel drive away from what remained of Vole Towers I
could see a white charger galloping towards me, the warrior on its back
holding a sharpened lance while behind him a dog barked excitedly. I waved
King Pellinore to a halt.
'Ah!' he said, raising his visor and peering down at me. 'The Next girl! Seen
the Questin' Beast, what, what?'
'You've missed it,' I explained. 'Sorry.'
'Dem shame,' announced Pellinore sadly, parking the lance in his stirrup. 'Dem
shame indeed, eh? I'll find it, you know. It is the lot of the Pellinores, to
go a-mollocking for the beastly beast. Come, sir away!'
He spurred his steed and galloped off across the parkland of Vole Towers, the
horse's hooves throwing great divots of grass high in the air, the large white
dog running behind them, barking furiously
I returned to my apartment after giving an anonymous tip-off to
The Mole
, suggesting that they confirm the ongoing existence of
Cardenio
. The fact that I still had the apartment verified once and for all that
Landen hadn't been returned. I had been a fool to think that Goliath would
honour their part of the deal. I
sat in the dark for a while but even fools need rest, so I went to sleep under
the bed as a precaution, which was just as well at 3 a.m. Goliath turned up,
had a good look around and then left. I stayed hidden as a further precaution
and was glad of this also because SpecOps turned up at 4 a.m. and did exactly
the same. Confident now of no further interruptions, I crawled out from my
hiding place and climbed into bed, sleeping heavily until ten the next
morning.
31
Dream Topping
'Ever since calories and "sugar intake" were discovered the realm of the
pudding has suffered intensely. There was a day when one could honestly and
innocently enjoy the sheer pleasure of a good sticky toffee pudding; when ice
cream was nice cream and
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