Pure Dead Frozen Read Online Free Page A

to the boring minutiae of your tedious life, press eight.”
    On the point of hurling the phone against the glowing metal belly of the furnace, the demon was astonished to hear:
    â€œOperator services, how may I be of assistance?”
    â€œUm, yes,” babbled the demon, caught unawares. “Put me, uh, through to the Pit, would you?”
    â€œWould that be the Deep Pit, the Even Deeper Pit, or the Abysmally Profound Pit?” the voice demanded.
    â€œUh…the Deep Pit would be great,” the demon guessed, confused by the range of options, pitwise.
    There was a click, a hum, and then the return of the ringing tone. The demon closed his eyes and was on the verge of hanging up when a voice spoke in his ear.
    â€œTHIS IS ONE’S ANSWERING MACHINE,” the voice announced, its superior tone instantly identifying it as belonging to S’tan Himself. Before the duty demon could draw breath, S’tan, or rather S’tan’s answering machine, continued: “ONE IS FAR TOO BUSY TO COME TO THE PHONE RIGHT NOW, SO WHY DON’T YOU JUST LEAVE YOUR PATHETIC LITTLE BLEATINGS—OOPS, I MEAN, LEAVE YOUR
MESSAGE
AFTER THE TONE.”
    Then came an extended pause, during which the demon could distinctly hear the sound of heavy breathing, followed by S’tan’s voice, the volume lowered as if He were talking to some unseen person:
    â€œWHO GIVES A FAT FIG WHAT MESSAGES THEY LEAVE? YOU DON’T REALLY THINK ONE HAS TIME TO LISTEN TO ALL THEIR TEDIOUS WHINGEINGS, DO YOU? WHATEVER DO YOU TAKE ONE FOR? ONE IS A CELEBRITY, NOT AN AGONY AUNT. NOW CALL ME A CAB—ONE HAS A FLIGHT TO CATCH….”
    There was the sound of a distant door slamming and a hiss of static. Then came several electronic beeps and whooshes, a short silence, then a click followed by a woman’s soft voice enunciating:
    â€œ
You’re through to the
Totally Toast
studio at Bee-Bee-See, dot coh, dot You-Kay. No one is available to take your call right now, so leave us a message or send a fax after the tone.”
And then came the unmistakable sound of someone, probably S’tan, blowing a loud and mocking raspberry.

A Boo at Bedtime
    N ight fell over StregaSchloss, making the house look as if it were floating in the surrounding shadows, like an ocean liner far out at sea. Lit windows punctuated the vast darkness, and overhead the silent stars went by. A bitter wind shook branches of the wisteria against the darkened nursery window, where they tapped on the glass, flailing and tossing. In the warmth of the Ancestors’ Room, snug behind curtains of moth-eaten damask, Minty looked up from a recipe book. Was that a cry? Had Damp woken up? The young nanny was halfway down the corridor to the nursery before she remembered that Damp didn’t sleep there anymore.

    The nursery was covered in dust sheets, all its furniture huddled in the center of the room, the carpets and rugs rolled and stacked in a corner while the room was in the process of being redecorated to within an inch of its life. Well…perhaps not quite
that
far, Minty amended, recalling how Signora Strega-Borgia’s sudden enthusiasm for redecorating had vanished almost entirely upon the discovery of just how many coats of paint would be required to cover up five decades of smoke from log fires kindled in the nursery fireplace.
    â€œBut I’ve painted it
twice,
” Baci complained, standing, brush in hand, in the middle of the empty room, gazing in defeat at her newly painted walls—walls that, despite her best efforts, seemed determined to remain the exact shade of yellow of a crocodile’s tooth, crossed with a color best described as that of a pipe smoker’s lung. Shortly thereafter, Baci had abandoned the entire project of preparing the nursery for the soon-to-arrive youngest Strega-Borgia, turning her maternal energies instead toward the bushes in her rose garden, spraying, mulching, and tenderly swaddling their