‘You’ve got – bits of people stored on ice?’ said Nanny, horrified. ‘Bits of strange people? Chopped up? I’m not taking another step!’
Now Igor looked horrified.
‘Not thtrangerth,’ he said. ‘Family.’
‘You chopped up your family?’ Nanny backed away.
Igor waved his hands frantically.
‘It’s a tradithion!’ he said. ‘Every Igor leaveth hith body to the family! Why wathte good organth? Look at my Uncle Igor, he died of buffaloeth, tho there wath a perfectly good heart and thome kidneyth going begging, pluth he’d thtill got Grandad’th handth and they were damn good handth, let me tell you.’ He sniffed. ‘I with I’d had them, he wath a great thurgeon.’
‘We-ll . . . I know every family says things like ‘He’s got his father’s eyes”-‘ Nanny began.
‘No, my thecond couthin Igor got them.’
‘But- but . . . who does the cutting and sewing?’ said Magrat.
‘I do. An Igor learnth houthehold thurgery on hith father’th knee,’ said Igor. ‘And then practitheth on hith grandfather’th kidneyth.’
‘ ‘scuse me,’ said Nanny. ‘What did you say your uncle died of?’
‘Buffaloeth,’ said Igor, unlocking another door.
‘He broke out in them?’
‘A herd fell on him. A freak acthident. We don’t talk about it.’
‘Sorry, are you telling us you do surgery on yourself?’ said Magrat.
‘It’th not hard when you know what you’re doing. Thometimeth you need a mirror, of courth, and it helpth if thomeone can put a finger on the knotth.’
‘Isn’t it painful?’
‘Oh, no, I alwayth tell them to take it away jutht before I pull the thtring tight.’
The door creaked open. It was a long, tortured, groaning noise: In fact there was more creak than door, and it went on just a few seconds after the door had stopped.
‘That sounds dreadful,’ said Nanny.
‘Thank you. It took dayth to get right. Creakth like that don’t jutht happen by themthelveth.’
There was a woof from the darkness and something leapt at Igor, knocking him off his feet.
‘Get off, you big thoppy!’
It was a dog. Or several dogs rolled, as it were, into one. There were four legs, and they were nearly all the same length although not, Magrat noted, all the same colour. There was one head, although the left ear was black and pointed while the right ear was brown and white and flopped. It was a very enthusiastic animal in the department of slobber.
‘Thith ith Thcrapth,’ said Igor, fighting to get to his feet in a hail of excited paws. ‘He’th a thilly old thing.’
‘Scraps . . . yes,’ said Nanny. ‘Good name. Good name.’
‘He’th theventy-eight yearth old,’ said Igor , leading the way down a winding staircase. ‘Thome of him.’
‘Very neat stitching,’ said Magrat. ‘He looks well on it, too. Happy as a dog with two- Oh, I see he does have two. . .’
‘I had one thpare,’ said Igor, leading the way with Scraps bounding along beside him. ‘I thought, he’th tho happy with one, jutht think of the fun he could have with two. . .’
Nanny Ogg’s mouth didn’t even get half open
‘Don’t you even think of saying anything, Gytha Ogg!’ snapped Magrat.
‘Me?’ said Nanny innocently.
‘Yes! And you were. I could see you! You know he was talking about tails, not . . . anything else.’
‘Oh, I thought about that long ago,’ said Igor. ‘It’th obviouth. Thaveth wear and tear, pluth you can uthe one while you’re replathing the other. I ecthperimented on mythelf.’
Their footsteps echoed on the stairs.
‘Now, what are we talking about here, exactly?’ said Nanny, in a quiet, I’m-only-asking-out-of-interest tone of voice.
‘Heartth,’ said Igor.
‘Oh, two hearts. You’ve got two hearts?’
‘Yeth. The other one belonged to poor Mr Thwinetth down at the thawmill, but hith wife thed it wath no uthe to him after the acthident, what with him not having a head to go with it.’
‘You’re a bit of a self-made man on the quiet, aren’t you?’ said Magrat.
‘Who did your brain?’ said Nanny.
‘Can’t do brainth yourthelf,’ said Igor.
‘Only . . . you’ve got all those stitches . . .’
‘Oh, I put a metal plate in my head,’ said Igor. ‘And a wire down my neck all the way to my bootth. I got fed up with all thothe lightning thtriketh. Here we are.’ He unlocked another groaning door. ‘My little plathe.’
It was a dank vaulted room, clearly lived in by someone who didn’t spend a lot of social time there. There was a fireplace with a dog basket in front of it, and a bed with a mattress and one
blanket. Crude cupboards lined one wall.
‘There’th a well under that cover there,’ he said, ‘and there’th a privy through there . . .’
‘What’s through that door?’ said Nanny, pointing to one with heavy bolts across it.
‘Nothing,’ said Igor.
Nanny shot him a glance. But the bolts were very firmly on this side.
‘This looks like a crypt,’ she said. ‘With a fireplace.’
‘When the old Count wath alive he liked to get warm of an evening before going out,’ said Igor. ‘Golden dayth, them wath. I wouldn’t give you tuppenth for thith lot. D’you know, they wanted me to get rid of Thcrapth?’,
Scraps leapt up and tried to lick Nanny’s face.
‘I thaw Lacrimotha kick him onthe,’ said Igor darkly. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Can I get you ladieth anything to eat?’
‘No,’ said Nanny and Magrat together.
Scraps tried to lick Igor. He was a dog with a lot of lick to share.
‘Thcrapth, play dead,’ said Igor. The dog dropped and rolled over with his legs in the air.
‘Thee?’ said Igor. ‘He rememberth!’
‘Won’t we be cornered down here if the Magpyrs come?’ said Magrat.
‘They don’t come down here. It’th not modern enough for them,’ said Igor. ‘And there’th wayth out if they do.’
Magrat glanced at the bolted door. It didn’t look the kind of way out anyone would want to take.
‘What about weapons?’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t
think there’d be any anti-vampire stuff in a vampire’s castle, would there?’
‘Why, thertainly,’ said Igor.
‘There is?’
‘Ath much ath you want. The old marthter wath very keen on that. When we had vithitorth ecthpected, he alwayth thed, “Igor, make thertain the windowth are clean and there’th lotth of lemonth and birth of ornament that can be turned into religiouth thymbolth around the plathe.” He enjoyed it when people played by the ruleth. Very fair, the old marthter.’
‘Yeah, but that’d mean he’d die, wouldn’t it?’ said Nanny. She opened a cupboard and a stack of wrinkled lemons fell out.
Igor shrugged. ‘You win thome, you lothe thome,’ he said. ‘The old marthter uthed to that’; “Igor, the day vampireth win all the time, that’th the day we’ll be knocked back beyond return.” Mind you, he got annoyed when people pinched hith thockth. He’d thay, “Thod, that wash thilk, ten dollarth a pair in Ankh-Morpork.”‘
‘And he probably spent a lot of money on blotting paper, too,’ said Nanny. Another cupboard revealed a rack of stakes, along with a mallet and a simple anatomical diagram with an X over the heart area.
‘The chart wath my idea, Mithith Ogg,’ said Igor proudly. ‘The old marthter got fed up with people just hammering the thtaketh in any old where. He thed he didn’t mind the dying, that wath quite rethtful, but he did object to looking like a colander.’
‘You’re a bright chap, aren’t you, Igor?’ said Nanny.
Igor beamed. ‘I’ve got a good brain in my head.’
‘Chose it yourself, did you? No, only joking. You can’t do brains.’
‘I’ve got a dithtant couthin at Untheen Univerthity, you know.’
‘Really? What’s he do there?’
‘Floatth around in hith jar,’ said Igor proudly. ‘Thall I thow you the holy water thellar? The old marthter built up a very good collection.’
‘Sorry? A vampire collected holy water?’ said Magrat.
‘I think I’m beginning to understand,’ said Nanny. ‘He was a sportsman, right?’
‘Egthactly!’
‘And a good sportsman always gives the valiant prey a decent chance,’ said Nanny. ‘Even if it means having a cellar of Chateau Nerf de Pope. Sounds an intelligent bird, your old boy. Not like this new one. He’s just clever.’
‘I don’t follow you,’ said Magrat.
‘Being killed’s nothing to a vampire,’ said Nanny. ‘They always find a way of coming back. Everyone knows that, who knows anything about vampires. If they’re not too hard to kill and it’s all a bit of an adventure for people, well, like as not they’ll just stake him or chuck him in the river and go home. Then he has a nice restful decade or so, bein’ dead, and comes back from the grave and away he goes again. That way he never gets totally wiped out and the lads of the village get some healthy exercise.’
‘The Magpyrs will come after us,’ said Magrat, clutching the baby to her. ‘They’ll see we’re not in Lancre and they’ll know we couldn’t have gone down to the plains. They’ll find the smashed coach, too. They’ll find us, Nanny.’