Mort Read Online Free Page B

out had clearly been a tactical error.
    He could see now he had been too confident in the ability of the Mongolian toscare off the visitors. Now it looked as though he was going to have to knuckle down and get serious with this Trish woman.
    What he needed was something really scary. Something even the conqueror of Khan couldn’t deal with.
    â€˜Mort,’ said Agnetha, ‘I don’t like the look on your face. You look exactly like you did that time you put a shark in Tutankhamun’s bathtub.’
    â€˜He deserved it, the little sneak!’ Mort got to his feet and began pacing back and forth. ‘It’s time to bring out the big guns,’ said Mort, his eyes glittering. Agnetha felt a chill run down her spine. There was a dangerous streak in her brother that had landed both of them in hot water before now. And each time it had started with the same expression on his face he wore now. ‘I’ve been too soft. Much too soft.’
    As if in answer, from somewhere deep in the belly of Festering Hall came a rumblinghowl. Agnetha glanced sharply at her brother and grabbed his sleeve.

    â€˜You don’t mean …? No, Mort, you can’t! Not Smiler!’
    â€˜Just watch me! I’m going to scare theseinterfering busybodies so much they’ll swim back to the mainland!’
    â€˜If they make it to the water!’ Agnetha grabbed Mort’s arm. He shrugged himself free from her grasp and sprinted for the door.
    â€˜Wait! Mort!’
    Mort was already heading down the stairs two at a time.
    â€˜Don’t worry, Aggers!’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘You’ll thank me for this later!’
    Agnetha took a step forward but she was too late.
    Mort was gone.

Nigel wasn’t very good at hiding.
    Trish spotted him easily from twenty metres away, crouching in a bush and holding a trembling branch in front of him.
    â€˜Come out, Nigel,’ said Trish as she drew closer. ‘Anyone can see you behind that twig.’
    Nigel emerged from the bushes. ‘Is that man chasing us?’ he said, his eyes wide.
    â€˜He’s in the swamp,’ said Trish. ‘But he won’t stay in there for long.’ She squinted into the distance. ‘Now let’s see if we can find this Festering Hall place, shall we? According tothe maps it’s only about another kilometre.’
    â€˜You don’t mean we’re still going through with this, do you?’ said Nigel.
    â€˜Of course we are,’ Trish said. ‘It’s in the manual. “The Unk Shire Education Department always gets its man.” Section Three, paragraph sixteen, clause four. We’re not stopping for anything until those children are safely at school. Got it?’
    Nigel nodded meekly.
    Trish turned and began striding towards a gradually rising wedge of land covered in wind-stunted trees. She pointed a finger to the sky. ‘On to Festering Hall!’
    Nigel took off after her like an Olympic sprinter. If there was one thing worse than following Trish Molyneux, it was waiting around for that hairy maniac to find him.

    Four hundred metres away, and finally free of the clinging mud of the swamp, Khan movedquickly. The woman and her lickspittle servant could only be a few minutes ahead and he was confident he could track them down easily enough.

    Khan gingerly reached a hand towards his chin to check the damage done to his beard. As he did so he noticed something sowonderful that, for a brief moment, he felt dizzy.
    His collar – the only thing that allowed that poisonous little squidge Mortimer DeVere to control him – was no longer around his neck! Khan punched the air and celebrated his new collar-free existence by dancing a jig. Admittedly it looked more like Khan was trying to shake a cockroach out of his underpants than any dance a normal human would recognise, but dancing wasn’t one of the skills needed to be a successful Mongolian warlord.
    He felt