The cook’s long hands caressed the whirling cat like a potter moulding clay. The sound of its hopeful purring grew louder, pulsing with the pressure of the fingers against its skin. Then the hands squeezed the spinning body tightly, bringing it to a halt before withdrawing from sight. The blur of cat-fur froze into clarity again, but now its shape had changed: its tail and rear end had been replaced by a mirrored copy of its head and chest. The poor animal had been transformed into conjoined twins, with two hungry, complaining mouths in place of one.
The two heads grimaced and snarled at each other; their single body postured and feinted, but the animal was too unbalanced to fight in the way it was accustomed to and within seconds it had been reduced to a writhing, ungainly ring of fur, thrashing around on its side, snapping and clawing at itself.
The cook said coldly, ‘Plenty of food within your reach now,’ and kicked the brawling animal out of sight.
Martin looked around the room, but nobody showed any sign of having witnessed the abomination; they had all kept their eyes conveniently averted. For a moment he was close to real frustration and anger: This ‘master of his art’ is not what he seems, you fools! But the whole point of the game was for Javeed – and himself, as the hero’s sidekick – to be the only ones to understand. The cook was not a man at alclass="underline" he was the demon Eblis in human form. His culinary skills were meant to seduce this weak-willed king; if the banquet was successful, Zahhak’s display of gratitude to his impressive new servant would end in a transformation just as terrifying as the cat’s, and vastly more fateful.
Javeed looked daunted; Martin touched his hand. ‘What are we going to do?’ Martin whispered. ‘If Zahhak likes the food and he embraces the cook-’
‘Feathers,’ Javeed announced. ‘We have to mix in some feathers.’
Martin smiled. ‘Good idea.’ He’d been thinking of using a few handfuls of rotting waste from the garbage dump, but this sounded just as effective. It would also spare him any qualms about the wisdom of encouraging his son to spread dysentery.
Haidar and the kitchen hands finished their work: every pheasant had been plucked, every herb chopped, every vegetable diced. As Haidar surveyed the mess on the floor, he promised Javeed, ‘I’ll put in a good word for you with the boss. I’m sure he’ll want to keep you on.’
Javeed tried to be polite, but he seemed to realise that there’d be something dishonest about assenting to this notion unreservedly. ‘I might be busy with a different job tomorrow,’ he confessed.
Haidar was a little taken aback, but his software could supply no sensible response, so he just bid them goodnight and left.
‘Have fun, pipsqueak,’ said Ahmed, brushing a pile of aubergine skins onto the floor.
‘I will!’ Javeed retorted.
They were alone in the preparation room now. Martin helped Javeed finish sweeping the floor, but as they gathered up the last of the waste and carried most of it out to the dump, they kept one basket aside and filled it with the plucked feathers.
They stood by the kitchen doorway, listening, Javeed still holding his broom in case someone chanced upon them. Finally, the assistant cooks started carrying some of the dishes through to the banquet hall. The cook himself went with them, to watch over the serving of the meal and bask in the king’s delighted praise.
Martin peeked into the kitchen. ‘Okay, it’s empty! Quick!’
Javeed carried the basket of feathers past the long row of stoves; it might have been weightless, but he struggled with the sheer size of the basket, which forced him to hold his arms uncomfortably wide. There were only two pots still sitting on the flames, at the far end of the room.
Martin removed the lid from one of the pots and started scooping feathers into the stew. He felt them tickling his palm, and watched them sinking into the simmering liquid. ‘This is so disgusting,’ he enthused. It was almost impossible not to conjure up images of people pulling feathers from their mouths, grimacing with distaste. Maybe he and Javeed could sneak into the hall and actually witness that spectacle of discomfort. If no one was watching, Zendegi would gloss over all the details, which would be an awful shame.
Javeed tapped his free hand urgently. ‘Baba, they’re coming back!’
Martin hurriedly replaced the lid of the pot. The footsteps were close; the doorway through which they’d entered was too far away. He looked around and saw the entrance to a small room; the door was already half-open. He grabbed the basket with one hand and Javeed with the other and led him into the room.
They stood behind the door. Beside them, metal pots and earthenware vessels were stacked on wooden shelves.
Two of the assistants entered the kitchen, grumbling, and left again – presumably carrying the last of the pots. Martin stuck his head around the door, just in time to spot the shadow of someone else approaching. He withdrew quickly.
‘Zahhak, Zahhak, Zahhak!’ the cook sighed dreamily. ‘All I want in thanks is one royal embrace.’ Martin had read the story in Javeed’s book: when the king took the demon cook in his arms in gratitude for so fine a meal, his humble subject kissed him once on each shoulder – and from each shoulder, a snake grew out of the flesh. They were hacked off by the king’s surgeons, but rapidly re-grew. The only thing that would appease them was a regular meal of human brains.
The cook whistled happily; from the sound of his footsteps he was practically waltzing around the room. Martin smiled down at Javeed. Soon there’d be shouts of outrage from the banquet hall, and a royal summons quite unlike the one Eblis had been expecting. No beheadings, though; Martin had even emailed Nasim to check that he’d ticked the right boxes to rule out that kind of violence. In the story, Eblis had simply vanished after conjuring up the snakes; confronted with failure, he could do the same.
The whistling stopped abruptly.
‘What do I smell?’ the cook said. ‘Pheasant blood, raw? When everything’s well done?’ He made a brutish snuffling sound. Martin glanced at the basket; they hadn’t emptied it completely, and there was a residue of blood-caked feathers still sticking to the bottom. ‘The little pipsqueak left the floor clean, didn’t he? No mess in sight. And yet…’
Three soft footsteps in their direction.
‘And yet…’
Martin tensed, torn by conflicting urges. This was a fairground ride, a ghost train, nothing more. Did he want to smother Javeed, to cheat him of the brief, safe terror that every child craved?
‘When is a door,’ the cook asked, switching to English, ‘not a door?’ He’d lost his Arabic accent; now he sounded like James Mason in Salem’s Lot.
Martin took Javeed’s hand and met his eyes, hoping Zendegi could infer and reconstruct his look of reassurance, despite the goggles. He needed Javeed to know that if he was afraid, it was all right to flee – it was all right to give this make-believe world the thumbs-down and simply banish the monster.
‘No takers? Really? But it’s so simple!’ Martin heard breathing just inches away, and a long-fingered hand appeared, clasping the side of the door.
‘When it’s ajar!’
The cook stepped into view, tall, smiling, reaching down towards Javeed. Martin tried to punch him, but he ducked aside effortlessly; as he did, Javeed slipped around the door. ‘Run!’ Martin yelled after him, jubilant.
The cook rose up to his full height again, smiling at Martin unpleasantly. He was clean-shaven, which seemed like an odd choice for a disguise here, but maybe demons couldn’t grow beards.
‘Never mind,’ the cook said. ‘The pipsqueak’s lost, but the father’s twice the meal.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Martin replied. ‘I’m just the chaperone here, don’t knock yourself out for my entertainment.’