Page 30 of Shroom for Improvement

Fae couldn’t lie, even in email, but those emails could have easily been from a nine-foot-tall naked daemon pretending to be Claude.

“Where is Stinkhorn Manor?” I said, probably too quietly. “Just out of curiosity.” Did it even exist?

“’Bout half an hour that way,” he replied.

I gulped. “It was twenty minutes away, ten minutes ago.”

“You’re a wizard with maths.” He shot me a wink, and I could not tell if he was messing with me. “Gotta get this piano, ain’t I? Ah, here we are, six-nine-six Hell View Road.”

Jasper pivoted the car onto a teeny tree-lined drive, and for one hair-raising moment, the wheels on my side of the truck left the ground, and I was staring down at his maniacal, laughing face. He pulled up outside what seemed to be a row of interconnected, rusted, sun-bleached lorry trailers. Enormous trees grew all around, blocking out the light and making the entire area feel about fifteen hours later than it was.

Holy crap, he’d brought me here to kill me.

Damn, damn, damn. I haven’t solved world hunger yet.

“Right, you wait here. Won’t be long,” Jasper said, jumping out of the car and heading towards the first trailer.

I pulled out my phone and fired a quick message to Mash.

Me:

I’m in a monster truck with a fire daemon. If I don’t call you this evening to let you know I’m okay, call the cops. I’m currently at 696 Hell View Road, somewhere east of Agaricus in KOTF. I’m supposed to be going to Stinkhorn Manor, which may or may not be on Night Cap Drive.

Mash’s reply came almost immediately. I let out a breath. At least if I vanished, the police would already have a lead to go off.

Mash:

WTF mate? U high?

Me:

No, I can’t lie, remember. Just, I’m slightly freaking out here.

Maybe I should make a run for it. I pulled up a map of the surrounding area and found the nearest property was eight miles west. It’d take me two hours to get to if I hiked, or I could find a town and catch a taxi back to the station.

Mash:

I need more deets. Why are you in KOTF? I thought you weren’t ever going back there.

I started to type out my reply, reasoning that Mash should have as much info as possible, including a screengrab of my location, when something, probably about as heavy as the truck itself, dropped into the bed. I spun around in my seat and saw the definitive arched top of a rather beat-up grand piano.

Out the driver’s side, Jasper slipped a man dressed in a hooded black cloak a wedge of notes, and hopped into his seat.

“You really did buy a piano?” I said, unsure whether I was making a statement or asking a question.

“Duh, that’s what I said.” He had such an incongruously posh accent. He slid his shades on, turned the car one-eighty, and headed back down the driveway. “Ain’t she a beaut?”

I whipped my head around to look at the piano again. No, was the answer. From what I saw of it, not at all. She—I guessed we’d assigned a gender to it—was enormous. The real-estate term would be well loved. Paint flaked away from every surface, which were more pockmarked than the moons, and I couldn’t be sure all the keys were there.

“Does it even play?” I asked. “Or is it like, a fixer-upper type job?” Maybe this nine-foot fire daemon’s hobby was refurbishing pianos and giving them a new lease of life.

“Nah, that doesn’t matter. I don’t care if it works. I just needed the heaviest piano the guy had. Absolute bargain. Eighty silvers. Got the idea off this old black and white cartoon. There’s this dog and this fox, right, and the dog is an idiot. It’s meant to be ripping apart the fox, but the fox is always so wily and always besting it. One time, the fox pushes a grand piano out of a window onto the dog. Right on top of him. Lovely sound it made. Like,CLANG! CLANG-BRUNG!I wondered if that’s the soundthey actually make when they fall from a four-storey window onto someone’s head.”

“Gods, what?” I needed to make myself smaller. Six-seven was way too conspicuous. “I thought you said it was a treat for Helena?”

He wiggled in his seat and startedteeheeingto himself, like a schoolboy drawing willies in his class text book. I didn’t need to know. Didn’t want to ask. Should definitely not ask.

“You’re not …” No, that would be stupid. So, so stupid. “You’re not going to drop a massive, and I mean massive, grand piano on this Helena person?”

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