A Plague of Hearts by Patrick Whittaker (best large ereader .TXT) 📖

his chair and considered. Time travel could, of course, have many advantages. But then again, it was a two-edged sword. Supposing someone else got hold of the secret? Could they then not alter history in such a way that he, the Panda, was never even born? The risk was slight but not worth taking. At the first possible moment, he would have TARTS destroyed and all those who had even the remotest grasp of its principles would have to be eliminated. ‘All right, General Lazenby. Your point is duly noted. Leave it with me and I’ll let you have your answer in a day or two.’
And the answer, thought the Panda, will be a bullet through the base of your skull.


17. The Rise and Fall of the Red Queen

Leaving the Grey Squirrel’s corpse to the flies, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare went back indoors. A warm breeze was beginning to rattle the windows like an insistent child wanting to make its presence felt. It was as if the whole world had been holding its breath, just waiting for this moment to happen.
At the top of the stairs, the Mad Hatter paused and turned to his friend. ‘You understand that he had to die, don’t you?’
The March Hare took a deep breath, then nodded. ‘If he was about to betray us, there was no choice. In fact, I think I would have pulled the trigger myself.’
‘I have no doubt of that. In days to come, you’ll look back on tonight and see it as an initiation, the start of a long, slow education in the realities of life.’
‘Tell me one thing then. Why do they call you the Mad Hatter? I mean, are you really as mad as all that?’
The Mad Hatter opened his shirt and traced his finger across the grid work of fresh razor wounds. ‘By my own standards, I’m totally out of my tree, but now is not the time to contemplate such things. There’s a certain lady who’s been dying to meet you, and we really shouldn’t keep her waiting.’
There were two doors at the top of the stairs. One led into the dormitory in which the March Hare had earlier met the Red Orchestra. Going to the other one, the Mad Hatter produced a key and unlocked it.
‘Before we go in,’ he said, ‘I should warn you that what you see in here will probably shock you. It may even make you angry.’
‘I can’t be shocked any more,’ said the March Hare. ‘Over these past few days, I’ve been to Hell and back. My emotions are overloaded. They’ve blown a fuse.’
The March Hare pushed open the door and strode purposefully through it into a room illuminated by a series of candles placed around the floor. There was no furniture, only an electric generator and a grey metal cabinet resting by the window.
‘Like an alchemist’s laboratory,’ he observed, walking over to the cabinet. He looked down and found himself staring at the Queen of Hearts. She lay naked in the cabinet, her arms across her chest. In death, as in life, she was a grim and forbidding sight.
The Mad Hatter closed the door behind them. ‘I suppose you heard the Queen disappeared shortly after she was removed from the court room?’
‘Only rumours.’
‘She lived a long and useless life. If she had a single saving grace, she kept it well hidden. But now she’s dead, and I shall lead her to the path of redemption. Tonight, the Queen of Hearts will rise again and atone for her sins.’
‘Rise? Then this box must be Ormus’ orgone generator.’
The Mad Hatter nodded. ‘Call me Necromancer. I am he who can steal a soul from the devil and return it to its mortal shell.’
‘For how long?’
‘Long enough. While the Red King sleeps, His Queen will run her race. And in the morning, she will be back where she started. But if you’ve no stomach for this, then you’re free to go. There’s no reason for you to be involved.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m staying anyway.’
‘Good. I’d hate for you to miss the end game. We’ve played political chess against the Panda for long enough. The Queen is the strongest piece on the board. With her help, we can break the tyrant’s back.’
The red light on the cabinet suddenly went out.
‘Now,’ said the Mad Hatter, ‘the Red Queen is with us.’
‘She’s not moving.’
‘I’ve given her a strong dose of refined buzz. She’s alive, but in a light hypnotic trance.’
‘I wonder at the way your mind works.’
‘Not my mind. All I do is follow the wishes of the Red King, as revealed to me by the cards. The Sleeping Monarch yearns for his wife. He wants to see her just one last time before she departs to the Netherworld for all eternity. Without my help, his desire would drive him to abandon his dream and awaken. And that would mean the end of the world.’
Dropping to his knees, the Mad Hatter leaned over the side of the cabinet. ‘Your Majesty? Can you hear me?’
The Queen’s lips trembled. Her nostrils flared. ‘Who’s there?’ she asked. Her voice was vague and distant. She spoke like a lost child.
‘A friend,’ said the Mad Hatter. ‘A friend and a loyal subject who has the most appalling news to impart to you.’
‘Leave me. I was sleeping. I was caught in a wonderful dream of flying down a long tunnel towards a golden light.’
‘Your Majesty,’ said the Mad Hatter. ‘There’s something you must know.’
‘What is it?’
‘You’re naked, Your Majesty. As bare as the day you were born.’
‘No. Never naked... Not since I was six years old...’
‘You have no clothes, Your Majesty. The Panda has stolen them.’
The Queen tensed. ‘That heathen!’ she hissed. ‘That monstrous little freak!’
‘He hates you, Your Majesty.’
‘And I hate him!’
‘Perhaps Your Majesty would care to discuss this with the Panda?’
‘I have nothing to say to him.’
‘He’s stolen your clothes. Everybody’s laughing at you.’
‘Who dares?’
‘Your subjects are mocking you. Can you not hear them?’
‘Such wicked laughter! Make them stop. Tell them to go away.’
‘They won’t go away. When I ask them to leave, they laugh all the more.’
‘I am their Queen. They’re supposed to love me. Why then do they treat me this way?’
‘Because the Panda has been spreading evil, loathsome lies about you. Why don’t I take you where no-one can see you?’
‘Yes,’ said the Queen. ‘That would be best.’
‘Then stand, Your Majesty. Rise up and follow me.’
The Queen opened her eyes. It happened so unexpectedly, the March Hare caught his breath. Her gaze passed from the Mad Hatter to the March Hare, then back to the Mad Hatter.
‘You must help me,’ said the Queen. ‘I am weak. I do not think I can stand by myself.’
The Queen’s left armpit was sweaty. It smelt of stale perfume and almonds. For the March Hare, placing his paw into that hairy alcove was something close to purgatory. Coarse hairs dug into the soft pads of his palms. He shuddered.
The Mad Hatter, who had to perform the same manouevre on the other side of the Queen, looked equally disgusted.
‘The things I do for Truth, Liberty and Justice,’ he complained, tensing himself for the task of lifting the Queen. ‘I hope somebody remembers to give me a medal for this.’
Ten minutes later, the Queen stood in the moonlight, gazing into the distance at nothing in particular. Behind her, the March Hare and the Mad Hatter were kneeling in the grass, panting and groaning and wiping their soiled hands on the ground.
‘You can have this for a game of cards,’ said the March Hare. ‘It’s a wonder I didn’t put my back out.’
‘Never mind,’ said the Mad Hatter, wiping a bead of sweat from his top lip. ‘From here on, it’s downhill all the way.’
He got to his feet and approached the Queen. By the light of the silvery moon, her pale flesh possessed a celestial quality. The mounds of her buttocks moved strangely in the breeze, as if maggots crawled beneath her skin.
Hearing the Hatter’s footsteps, the Queen turned. ‘I feel strange,’ she said. ‘As if I’m caught in somebody else’s dream.’
From his pocket, the Mad Hatter produced a small bottle. Around its neck was a paper label with the words Drink Me printed on it in large, gothic letters. ‘This will make Your Majesty feel better.’
The Queen held out her hand. ‘I am so very thirsty. And hungry. And lonely.’
‘And naked,’ added the Mad Hatter.
Looking down at herself, the Queen trembled, not with rage but with a sadness such as she had never thought possible. It was not that her body was unbearably gross; it was the sudden knowledge that her love for her subjects had not been returned.
She took the bottle from the Mad Hatter and dispatched its contents in one swallow.
The Mad Hatter shrank before her. The horizon seemed that much closer.
‘The heavens!’ she uttered. ‘It is a dream after all. The world is growing smaller. Soon it will disappear completely. I shall be the only thing in all creation, and then I will wake up.’
The March Hare realised immediately what was happening. In the space of a few short seconds, the Queen had tripled in size. Her great, quivering thighs filled his vision.
‘You bastard!’ he screamed at the Mad Hatter. ‘That was magic mushroom juice!’
The Mad Hatter ignored him. ‘Your Majesty!’ he cried, backing away to what he hoped was a safe distance. ‘Don’t forget the Panda! He has your clothes.’
‘Yes!’ roared the Queen, majestic once more. ‘This may only be a dream, but I shall have my pleasure. Let me grow, dear God! Let me dwarf the mountains and become so vast that I shall dine on stars and sleep on the spiral arm of a distant galaxy.’
Her buttocks brushed against a tree, producing a shower of broken branches. She was over fifty feet tall and still growing. A limb of the tree was embedded in her thigh. She swiftly removed this splinter and tossed it aside.
In the meantime, the Mad Hatter and March Hare had taken cover in a nearby cornfield.
The Mad Hatter lay on his back, rocking slightly from side to side as he tried to suppress his mirth. Everything was going as planned. Adrenalin flooded his metabolism, producing a high that felt like free fall. The March Hare, on the other hand, was neither amused nor elated. As the Queen of Hearts expanded before him, he felt again the sheer horror he had experienced in the Court Room as Alice toppled onto the Knave. Whatever the Hatter’s motives - and he did not believe them to be pure - what he had done was obscene. It was a sin against Nature, a perversion of the workings of the Universe. A blasphemy.
The Queen’s foot swept forward, creating a draught that swept over the Mad Hatter and the
March Hare, bending corn and whispering like a spiteful gossip. The foot came down on Mrs. Pogue’s Home for the Bewildered and Slightly Insane, pile-driving through the roof and grinding bricks into dust. A grey cloud billowed around her left calf.