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Faust Amongst Equals
Tom Holt
CHAPTER ONE
THE Laughing Cod in downtown Hlidarend is rated as one of north-eastIceland 's premier restaurants.
Or one of northeastIceland 's restaurants. In practice, it amounts to the same thing.
On the three hundred and sixty-four days each year when the Laughing Cod isn't being a restaurant, you
can still walk in to the bar and order a coffee; and this is precisely what the Most Wanted Man in History
did.
Six of the seven regulars turned and stared at him as he did so; the seventh, Wall-Eyed Bjorn, just
carried on complaining about herring quotas.
Torsten Christianssen, the ever-popular proprietor of the Cod, poured the coffee, waited for it to settle,
and leant back against the cash register, soaking in the thrill of a new experience.
`Just passing through, are you?' he asked after a while.
The newcomer looked up. `You could say that,' he replied, with only the very faintest trace of an
unfamiliar accent. `Could you fix me a toasted sandwich, while you're at it?'
`Sure,' Torsten said. `Coming right up.' He withdrew into the kitchen, wondering what the hell he was
doing. It was theoretically possible to get a toasted sandwich in the Cod, but
you needed references from two doctors and a justice of the peace before your application could even
be considered.
When the stranger had eaten his sandwich, drunk his coffee and spent about forty-five seconds studying
the framed photograph of Einar Sigfussen's record grayling on the wall opposite, he stood up and asked
for the bill.
`The what?'
`The bill,' repeated the stranger. `Please.'
`Oh, yes, right. Coming right up. Anybody here got a pencil or something?'
There was a brief, stunned silence, which was resolved when the stranger unclipped one from his top
pocket and handed it over. Torsten took it as if it was red hot, and tentatively pressed the top.
`How do you spell coffee?' he asked.
The stranger told him; then took the paper from his hands, glanced at it, and fished a banknote out of his
shirt pocket. A ten-thousand kroner note.
`Hey,' said Torsten, when God's marvellous gift of speech had been restored to him. `You got anything
smaller?'
The stranger looked at him, took back the note and put it down on the counter. Then he smiled at it.
It began to shrink.
You couldn't say how it did it; it just gradually occupied less and less space, until eventually it was about
the size of a postage stamp. The stranger picked it up, blew on it, and passed it back across the counter.
`Is that better?' he asked.
On the other side of Death, there is a tunnel, leading to an archway. Then the road forks, and this is the
point at which you find out whether the ethical system you've been following all these years was the right
one after all.
If you've backed the Betamax version, you'll come at last to a rather impressive black stone gateway.
There is no name or
street number, but the chances are that you'll have guessed where you are anyway. However, by way of
a heavy hint, the gateway bears the celebrated inscription:
ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE
- or so your Michelin Guide would have you believe. It's very possible that it still does, but you can no
longer see for yourself, because the whole of the architrave of the gateway is now covered with a huge
banner, on which is painted the legend:
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
- and when you get up really close, you can see that it actually says:
entirely
UNDER ^ NEW MANAGEMENT
- just to ram the point well and truly home. At this juncture, you will be met by your guide, who will
escort you to the ticket office (where you can also purchase guide books, souvenir pencils and
locally-made coconut ice). The Michelin Guide doesn't mention that; but if you think about it, how would
they know, anyway?
Once you've passed the ticket office, your tour will take you all round the justly celebrated architectural
gems that comprise the inner courtyard, with the exception of the Council Chamber, which is not yet
open to the public. This is a pity because apart from the Michelangelo floor (remember where we are)
the Chamber houses three late Veroneses, a rather fine set of Diirer engravings and, naturally, the finest
collection of works by Hieronymus Bosch in the universe. They are, of course, all portraits, such as may
be found in the boardroom of any long-established corporate body.
On the day in question, the Council was in session, and had been for sixteen hours. The Council
members (or Board of Directors, as we must call them now) each sat under his, her or its respective
portrait, each one looking just the same as he/she/it had when Ronnie Bosch had painted them six
hundred years previously; except that they were all wearing, somewhat self-consciously, identical red
T-shirts with the words:
HAVIN' A DAMNED GOOD TIME
printed on them in big white letters.
`I still reckon we haven't thought this thing through properly,' said the Production Director stubbornly.
He'd opposed the whole idea of a management buy-out from the start, and had only come in with the rest
of the consortium under considerable pressure.
`Listen, Harry,' replied the Sales Director, lashing his tail irritably. 'We know what you think, so you
stick to keeping the ovens going and we'll all get along just fine. You leave the management side to the
grown-ups, okay?' For the record, he'd been the one applying the pressure, with a pitchfork, in the small
of the Production Director's back.
`Actually,' interrupted the Admin Director wearily, `Harry has got a point there, of sorts. I mean, it's one
thing getting the blasted franchise. Keeping it's a different crock of entrails entirely.'
The Sales Director scowled, displaying a wide selection of unlikely components. `All you can do is make
problems,' he complained. 'We're running a business now, people. I suggest we all remember that,
okay?'
`Sure.' The Finance Director nodded what, for the sake of argument, we shall call his head. `We all
know that, Steve, you've told us often enough. I'd just like to remind you that if those bloody inspectors
catch us breaking the terms of the
franchise, they'll have us out of here like the proverbial pea through a trumpet. Is that what you want?'
The Sales Director groaned theatrically and paused for a moment to scratch his nose (the one growing
up out of his navel, not the one sprouting between his eyebrows). `Look, Norman,' he said, `there's ways
round all that stuff, you know that as well as I do. All it takes is a little...'
The Finance Director shook what he had recently nodded. `And there's such a thing as being too bloody
clever for your own good, Steve. You'd do well to remember that.' He rubbed the bridge of his beak
with a thoughtful claw, and continued; `If they think we're not fulfilling the public service part of the
deal...'
`But we are.'
`I'm not so sure.'
`Neither am I,' interrupted the Production Director. `Take the perjury business, for instance. We could
have got in serious schtuck with that.'
'I hadn't heard about any perjury stuff,' murmured the Finance Director, tapping the edge of the table
with his offside front wing. `Sounds interesting.'
The Production Director grinned unpleasantly, even for him. `I'll bet,' he said. `Look, in the franchise
agreement it says, clause nine, sub-para three, all perjurers shall be broken on the wheel, right?'
`Right,' agreed the Finance Director. `Standard procedure, it's what we've been doing for years. So?'
`So this dangerous clown here only had the whole department cleared out and fifty roulette tables put in.
If I hadn't found out about three days before the last random check...'
`I still don't know what you're getting so uptight about,' growled the Sales Director. `A wheel's a wheel,
right? And I can guarantee the whole lot of them were broke by the
time...'
He subsided under the glare of the Finance Director's six
beady red eyes, and took a sudden interest in the pencil on the table in front of him.
`That,' said the Finance Director, `is definitely going too far. As,' he added sharply, `is this idea of
changing the name of the place to Netherglades Theme Park. How the hell am I meant to explain that to
the inspectors, Steve? A smear campaign by the printers?'
The Sales Director sniffed - quite an achievement, considering. `Come on,' he said. `Even a bunch of
blinkered, concrete-brained civil servants is going to realise the importance of image in a business like
this. You honestly believe the punters are going to be able to relate to the image we've got at the
moment? I mean, would you fork out good money if you thought you were going to get your lungs ripped
out with a blunt meathook?'
`But that's the business we're in, Steve.'
The Sales Director waved an impatient talon. `So are an awful lot of people, Harry, that's not the point.
The point is, you can torture the punters and roast them alive and coop them up in confined spaces
indefinitely and flay them on spits and they'll still fall over themselves to give you money, just so long as
you can convince them it's fun. That's what the holiday industry's all about, Harry. Just so long as your
image is okay...'
`I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one for the time being,' said the Finance Director
smoothly. `I mean, there's obviously good arguments on both sides. Yes, we have to watch our backs as
far as the inspectors are concerned. On the other hand, we've got a bloody good compliance record as
far as everything else is concerned. Like, you know, waiting lists cut, catering costs reduced by half,
maintenance schedules improved, security as good as ever...'
There was a soft cough from his left. If the Head of Security had had a head, he'd have shaken it.
`To a certain extent, yes,' he muttered.
The Finance Director turned round sharply, and his horns twitched- a sure sign of impending trouble.
`What do you mean, a certain extent?' he demanded. `Look, either nobody's escaped or...'
`I was coming to that.'
As the echo of the report died away, a faint breeze dissipated the remaining wisps of smoke, revealing
that (against all the odds) the Vampire King was still on his feet.
'Hmm,' he croaked. `I'm not sure how many points you score for that.'
On the other side of the valley, Kurt `Mad Dog' Lundqvist blinked, swore quietly under his breath, and
reached into his top pocket for another silver bullet. Nothing. Just a compass, a pearl-handled
switchblade and a roll of peppermints.
'Oh-kay,' he called out. `You want to do this the hard way, that's fine by me.'
A few minutes later they were facing each other, mano a mano in the sand. Lundqvist could see that the
Vampire King was sweating now, his face more than usually drawn, his teeth protruding just a telltale
smidgen more. All the King could see was the flash of the noon sun on Lundqvist's mirror RayBans.
`Not like you to miss the heart at four hundred yards, Kurt,' muttered the King. It was intended as a
taunt, but Lundqvist accepted it as a statement of fact; which, of course, it was.
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