Witches Abroad

"Well, you should have had."

Greebo turned slowly, a faint, lazy smile on his scarred fpce. As a human, his nose was broken and a black patch covered his bad eye. But the other one glittered like the sins of angels, and his smile was the downfall of saints. Female ones, anyway.

Perhaps it was pheromones, or the way his muscles rippled under his black leather shirt. Greebo broadcast a kind of greasy diabolic sexuality in the megawatt range. Just looking at him was enough to set dark wings fluttering in the crimson night.

"Uh, Greebo," said Nanny.

He opened his mouth. Incisors glittered.

"Wrowwwwl," he said.

"Can you understand me?"

"Yessss, Nannyyy."

Nanny Ogg leaned against the wall for support.

There was the sound of hooves. The coach had turned into the street.

"Get out there and stop that coach!"

Greebo grinned again, and darted out of the alley.

Nanny fanned herself with her hat.

"Whoo-eee," she said. "And to think I used to tickle his tummy... No wonder all the lady cats scream at night."

"Gytha!"

"Well, you've gone very red, Esme."

"I'm just out of breath," said Granny.

"Funny, that. It's not as if you've been running."

The coach rattled down the street.

The coachmen and footmen were not at all sure what they were. Their minds oscillated wildly. One moment they were men thinking about cheese and bacon rinds. And the next they were mice wondering why they had trousers on.

As for the horses... horses are a little insane anyway, and being a rat as well wasn't any help.

So none of them were in a very stable frame of mind when Greebo stepped out of the shadows and grinned at them.

He said, "Wrowwwl."

The horses tried to stop, which is practically impossible with a coach still piling along behind you. The coachmen froze in terror.

"Wrowwwl?"

The coach skidded around and came up broadside against a wall, knocking the coachmen off. Greebo picked one of them up by his collar and bounced him up and down while the maddened horses fought to get out of the shafts.

"Run awayy, furry toy?" he suggested.

Behind the frightened eyes man and mouse fought for supremacy. But they needn't have bothered. They would lose either way. As consciousness flickered between the states it saw either a grinning cat or a six-foot, well-muscled, one-eyed grinning bully.

The coachmouse fainted. Greebo patted him a few times, in case he was going to move...

"Wake up, little mousey..."

... and then lost interest.

The coach door rattled, jammed, and then opened.

"What's happening?" said Ella.

"Wrowwwwl!"

Nanny Ogg's boot hit Greebo on the back of his head.

"Oh no you don't, my lad," she said.

"Want to," said Greebo sulkily.

"You always do, that's your trouble," said Nanny, and smiled at Ella. "Out you come, dear."

Greebo shrugged, and then slunk off, dragging the stunned coachman after him.

"What's happening?" complained Ella. "Oh. Magrat. Did you do this?"

Magrat allowed herself a moment's shy pride.

"I said you wouldn't have to go to the ball, didn't I?"

Ella looked around at the disabled coach, and then back to the witches.

"You ain't got any snake women in there with you, have you?" said Granny. Magrat gripped the wand.

"They went on ahead," said Ella. Her face clouded as she recalled something.

"Lilith turned the real coachmen into beetles," she whispered. "I mean, they weren't that bad! She made them get some mice and she made them human and then she said, there's got to be balance, and the sisters dragged in the coachmen and she turned them into beetles and then... she trod on them..."

She stopped, horrified.

A firework burst in the sky, but in the street below a bubble of terrible silence hung in the air.

"Witches don't kill people," said Magrat.

"This is foreign parts," muttered Nanny, looking away.

"I think," said Granny Weatherwax, "that you ought to get right away from here, young lady."

"They just went crack - "

"We've got the brooms," said Magrat. "We could all get away."

"She'd send something after you," said Ella darkly. "I know her. Something from out of a mirror."

"So we'd fight it," said Magrat.

"No," said Granny." Whatever's going to happen's going to happen here. We'll send the young lady off somewhere safe and then... we shall see."

"But if I go away she'll know," said Ella. "She's expecting to see me at the ball right now! And she'll come looking!"

"That sounds right, Esme," said Nanny Ogg. "You want to face her somewhere you choose. I don't want her lookin' for us on a night like this. I want to see her coming."

There was a fluttering in the darkness above them. A small dark shape glided down and landed on the cobbles. Even in the darkness its eyes gleamed. It stared expectantly at the witches with far too much intelligence for a mere fowl.

"That's Mrs Gogol's cockerel," said Nanny, "ain't it?"

"Exactly what it is I might never exactly decide," said Granny. "I wish I knew where she stood."

"Good or bad, you mean?" said Magrat.

"She's a good cook," said Nanny. "I don't think anyone can cook like she do and be that bad."