Potion of Eternity , livre ebook

SONJA CHANDRACHUD
The Potion of Eternity
A Hilarious Hauntings Adventure
Illustrations by Kunal Kundu
PUFFIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Tomb Times
B LOOD-CURDLING N EWS
C OUNTDOWN TO THE R ESCUE !
T ERRIBLE T IMES
M OVING O N
A H OME TO H AUNT
W ELCOME TO THE D UNGEONS
R.I.P.
O N A S PIRITED H IGH !
B ARING Y OUR B ONES
A B LOODBATH
H AUNTING R ULES
S POOKY B EGINNINGS
T O N AME A S POOK OR T WO
B URYING INTO THE N EIGHBOURHOOD
M ISSION I MPOSSIBLE
T HE K NOCK-OUT P UNCH
A S ENSE OF F EAR
T HE D EVIL S C ARD
F RENCH C ONNECTIONS
M UM S THE W ORD !
D INING WITH THE D EAD
T HE W ALK OF F IRE
A C HILLING B REW
G OING B ATTY
A P ROPHECY ON THE L OOSE !
A W ITCH TO W ED
D EATH BY C HOCOLATE
T ERROR T ANTRUMS
N IGHTMARE ON E LM S TREET
C OMPLETELEY C LUELESS IN W ICHITA
T HE R AGE OF B ETRAYAL
F ATHER OF THE B RIDE
N AILED D EAD
B ACK FROM THE F UTURE
P HANTOM M ENACE
P OTION P ERFECTED !
F INDING M OMMY
T HE W EB OF D ECEIT
T RUTH IN A T EA C UP !
J AIL B REAK AT D AWN
A F RIEND IN D EED
T HE B ELLY OF THE B EAST
A H AUNTING E ND
E PILOGUE E PITAPH
D EAD E ND
B LAME I T O N (A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS )
Copyright Page
PUFFIN BOOKS
THE POTION OF ETERNITY
Sonja was born in Mumbai, then raised in Zambia and Muscat on a diet of constant travelling, till she finally found herself plonked in a boarding school in Pune, forced to knuckle down and study. While the rest of her classmates diligently studied, Sonja masterminded midnight feasts and spooky storytelling sessions that always ended in gales of laughter!
She truly believes that a sense of humour makes life sparkle and that a bit of dreaming can make magic happen!
To the Von D eths in my life till death do us part
Signs of the terrible troubles brewing in the Sorcery World hit the news-stands minutes before midnight By dawn, the news had spread like wildfire.
From the shores of America to the remotest Polynesian island, it snaked its way into sorcerers homes, sending a frisson of fear down their spines.
And found its way to Istanbul-into the Von D eths home
Tomb Times NEW YORK . TOKYO . MUMBAI . RIO . LONDON . PARIS .
THE GREAT WEDDING SPAT!
The Great Wedding of the Century has come to a sudden and tragic end.
What was to be the perfect union of Deep Sea Magic and Oriental Occult, perhaps the last chance to bring forth a new and more powerful generation of wizards and sorcerers, has come undone.
Like the recent goof-ups by the Wizard Organization Worldwide (WOW), this chance too went down the drain.
Last night, Abyssinia, the Enchantress of the Deep, and Dead Lee, Sorcerer of the Orient, exchanged vows and rings, and quaffed down the mystical Potion of Eternity-to find themselves at the receiving end of some craftily spiked magic. Instead of declaring undying eternal love, the renowned sorcerers went off the deep end!
Dead Lee, spiked to his gills, declared himself master of Abyssinia s seas, and tossed all fishing regulations overboard, setting off a mad rush by the Slimy Poachers Agency (SPA) to hunt whale, shark or whatever marine mollusc they could lay their nets on. To which the outraged enchantress, livid that her species were in danger of being slaughtered for supper, whipped up a tsunami that promptly wiped out Dead Lee s islands!
Phantom Airways was forced to airlift over a hundred wedding guests stranded on Serenity Island with no broomsticks to get back home At the end of the day, the Great Wedding was nothing but a total washout with things going from bad to really worse.
And like other recent incidents, a raven feather was found at the scene of the crime
This could be Black Magi sabotage, the Phantom Police reluctantly admitted.
How does the Black Magi, a small, shadowy group of evil wizards, manage these audacious coups all the time?
It was just last full moon that the Black Magi struck a blow at the heart of the WOW HQ in Siberia! The Insomnia Elixir, which would have changed the world for sleepy spectres, vanished from under Druid Nostra s nose!
Our sources also report that the new crop of WOW wizards and sorcerers are an awfully shoddy lot, messing up spells, potions and getting caught with their capes down Frankly, it has become an embarrassment for the rest of the Sorcery World to keep bailing out these bumbling nitwits whenever a mission goes awry, which seems to be happening at the drop of a witch s hat.
There is now no doubt in every sorcerer s mind that with each new moon, the Black Magi are going from strength to strength And WOW needs to wake up to this nightmare!
Is this the beginning of the end of WOW?
Will the Black Magi finally take over the Sorcery World?
Is there no way to beat this menace?
GHOSTLY PRESS AGENCY (GPA) Press Release
Chapter 1
Blood-Curdling News

Is this the beginning of the end of WOW? Will the Black Magi finally take over the Sorcery World? Is there no way to beat this menace?
The breaking midnight news smacked Count Drunkula right in the face. How on earth did the GPA manage to go to press so quickly? Suddenly, the dark rafters of the Grand Souk of Istanbul, which had been home to the Von D eths for the last couple of months, turned chilly and foreboding, as this awful news completely curdled his blood
Ten nights ago, Count Drunkula Von D eth had been summoned by none other than the Ancient One-Nostra Daemus-the powerful, 317-year-old Druid who ran WOW with an iron wand. The mission: retrieve the secrets of the Potion of Eternity from the Vault of the Ancients, assist the Druid concoct the Potion and make sure it remained safe and secure for the Great Wedding. They had been very, very careful, deploying a special task force but, somehow, somewhere, someone had sold out And so instead of a nice pleasant thank you for everything and a goblet of scotch, Drunkula found himself at the receiving end of exceptionally trashy publicity!
An uneasy thought crossed his mind, was it someone he knew ? But who? Who knew the real reason behind getting the two sorcerers together besides the Ancient One?
He frowned, flipping through the rest of the news. This was all so distressing and terribly unsettling! He glanced at the dial that sat on the grime-encrusted window ledge. He had a few more hours before dawn to finish off some last minute paperwork. Like all sorcerers and enchanters, Count Drunkula Von D eth needed very little sleep. A few catnaps in his coffin were enough to see him through the rest of the day. But sleep was the last thing on his mind right now. He wanted some answers, some food for thought, and he knew just the person who could kickstart the grey cells into high gear.
Drunkula headed towards the kitchen.
Bon appetit, Count Von D eth, Headless Hamid greeted him cheerfully. The portly Lebanese chef bustled about, his head hanging by a thread, laying silverware and humming a haunting melody as he scurried about making sure the table was perfect.
A scrumptious spread of lizard eggs sunny side up, sprinkled with crunchy chopped spider legs, and slices of mouldy wheatgerm bread was waiting at the table.
But beneath that cheerful face lurked a dark and terrible secret
The Count shuddered involuntarily, remembering the stormy night when they had taken in this wanted spectre with a huge price on his head. Poor Hamid, the toast of Baghdad, the man behind the delectable hundred-flavoured baklavas, chef to the mad Caliph, had on one hot desert night, made one teeny, tiny mistake. A spice had slipped in where it shouldn t have, setting the Caliph s mouth on fire. Off with his head! the Caliph had ordered. Dead and with nothing left to lose, Headless Hamid had retaliated, snitching the Caliph s favourite hookah, the very rare and beautiful Shah Jahan sheesha. That had done it! Hamid was forced to flee, his head hanging by a tendon, dodging the Caliph s men till he fortuitously bumped into the Von D eths out on a moonlit stroll. He found friends and refuge. And they in turn found themselves at the mercy of a crazed gourmet chef
Boy, was he hungry! Drunkula s tummy rumbled. He picked up his goblet of cool milkweed milkshake, added a dash of highland malt and raised it to his lips, when the terrible thought about the traitor reared its ugly head again.
With that, the Count lost his appetite and decided to head to his study instead.
I ll wheep up yur favoreet green fungus and squishy maggot tost, if you like, Count! offered Hamid kindly.
Nein , danke , Hamid, I m not hungry, but maybe later, ok?
Inside the chilly confines of his dim and dusty study, the vampire wizard stood lost in thought. Had the mole been someone they knew? This was not good at all! What went wrong, he mused, sipping his double single malt, longing for the good old days of swashbuckling glory.
What happened to the good old days, when the press would laud each and every WOW exploit? He had become a hero overnight when he had chased and tripped the dreaded scumbag of a mole, the Wizard of the Lochs, in his own castle! He had caught the wizard red-handed, in the very act of selling off the Treasury of Children s Spells to the obnoxious Kidnapper Gnomes. Had the Count been a minute late, the horrible children-hating gnomes would have gotten their wretched hands on the rare kidspellopaedia and that would been the end of many a happy childhood. That battle had been a killer! Drunkula had gotten staked, and then unceremoniously thrown into a dungeon to rot to death. But later that night, when he came to his senses, he teetered and tottered about trying to find a way through the dank dungeon maze, slipped down a trapdoor and crashed headlong into a mangled heap of a knight in rusty armour, knocking himself out one more time. Knight Laphroaig revived the Count with an emergency single malt infusion, and an hour later Drunkula Von D eth had won the day, swooshing back into battle, vanquishing the evil Wizard Loch, s