THE WRITER LOOKS only slightly dishevelled in his expensive suit, his mop of black hair only a little out of place. Not at all like a man who has just shot two harpoons – one at me and one at Violet – and shot them both to kill. His sudden reappearance is so shocking that Vi and I just stand there, transfixed. Which is why Eels is able to snatch the paper from her so easily.
“Well, well, the missing page,” he says, straightening his tie. “And just as I’d given up hope of ever finding it…”
“No!” cries Violet. “That’s not yours, it’s my dad’s.”
She tries to snatch the paper back, but Eels picks her up. Just like that, he picks her up with one hand and throws her out of his way. Violet lands, stumbling, and falls back into an armchair.
In an instant, Erwin flies at Eels, hissing as he claws up his legs and sinks his teeth into the man’s hand, making him drop the paper.
“Little weasel!” cries Eels, flinging the cat away. Erwin twists in the air, ready to land on all fours, but he hits the corner of a bookshelf and, instead, falls limply to the ground.
And me? Well, I’ve grabbed the paper, haven’t I. But then there’s a clonk! to end all clonks as Eels brings his fist down on my head. My Lost-and-Founder’s cap is forced over my eyes, and I go down.
It’s a moment before I can find up again. When I do, I see that Eels is towering over me. I look over at Violet. She’s still in the chair, clutching her throat. Erwin is in her arms now, trembling with pain.
“The Achilles Spot,” Eels reads aloud to us from the paper, as if he’s giving a lecture. “Of course, you both know who Achilles was…”
He glances at each of us in turn.
“No? Well then, allow me to remind you. The hero Achilles was dipped in the magical River Styx as a baby, and his body made invulnerable all over. All over, that is, except at the place where his mother held him for the dipping. In Achilles’ case, his heel was his weakness. And it was an arrow in the heel that brought about his death many years later. But let’s see where the malamander’s Achilles spot is…”
Eels stops taunting us and reads the rest of the page, his lips moving quickly and silently with the words. Then he gasps. His gasp becomes a snort of derisive laughter.
“Is this some kind of joke?” the man says eventually, his brows lowering and his eyes going dark. “Is this all I have to do to kill the monster?”
“You’re the monster!” cries Violet. “I hope the malamander bites your head off.”
“Well, that was a distinct possibility,” says Eels, tapping the paper lightly. “But now that I know this… Well, who’d have thought it? Who’d have thought that such a fearsome, armoured fiend as the malamander – a monster that destroyed a whole battleship and its crew – would have such a soft heart?”
“What do you mean?” I say, despite myself. “Soft heart?”
“I suppose there’s no harm in telling you,” says Eels, refolding the sheet of paper and sliding it into his jacket. “According to dear Peter, the monster opens its heart when it lays its egg. Quite literally – the armoured plates over its heart fold back so that its beatings can be heard in the ocean. That’s how it calls its mate. On the coldest, darkest night of the year, the malamander lays its poor lonesome heart bare to summon its long-lost mate home to the nest. And doesn’t it just make you want to puke? How pathetic! But also how very unsurprising that a snowflake like Peter Parma would be the one to discover such a ridiculous fact.”
“My dad is a great man!” cries Violet. “He’s greater than you’ll ever be.”
“Is?” says Eels. “I think you mean was. Please don’t tell me you actually think your parents are still alive. Ah, but I see from your face that you do. Oh dear. Well, it hardly matters now. But I tell you what – once I have the malamander egg, and can make my every wish come true, I promise you, Violet Parma, that I’ll wipe you out of existence and end your misery for good!”
And with a snarl, he swings away to the door. But then stops, and swings back.
“Oh, I’ll be needing this,” he says, and stoops to pick up the dropped harpoon, which I’d still been holding when he came in.
“Tempered steel with a silver tip,” he says, turning the harpoon in the little light from the window, and making it flash cold and bright. “These things cost a fortune. But I only need one tonight, when I destroy the malamander. I’ll try to make it this one.”
