The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company Read online

  He grinned. “Alicia, is it?” She nodded. “How would you like to make a lot of money?”

  * * *

  Whether he liked it or not – and for the most part, he did like it – Timmy had been a villain for the majority of his life. The only time in his life when he hadn’t been a villain of some sort was prior to being dumped at the castle by a family who had been less than enthusiastic about one of their children being a necromancer. Oh well. Life wasn’t always fair, and his had turned out quite well, all things considered. He even had his own castle, albeit one that had been built over lightless chasms of horror and despair within which lurked primordial beings of incalculable power from another dimension that wanted to bring about the apocalypse. But those were minor details. He had a castle.

  Part of his villainy stemmed from the nature of necromancy itself combined with how easily necromancy could be used for evil purposes. Making zombies was considered creepy and evil by most people, and virtually all of the necromancers he knew who worked for a government were employed by tyrannical regimes bent on oppressing their enemies through the liberal use of wave after wave of zombies, most of which were made up of their former enemies. Fortunately for Timmy – and the world – that wasn’t his style. Tyrannical regimes invariably ended in oceans of blood, and he happened to enjoy living in relative comfort and minor villainy in his own castle. Being rich was nice, but being rich and dead was not. On the upside, he had recently gained access to a treasure trove of new opportunities.

  Everton had a long history of conflict with other nations that either wanted to enslave its people or simply annihilate it. As a result, Everton’s governments had a highly pragmatic bent, which was why, a few zealots aside, no one had ever made a truly serious, concerted effort to wipe out necromancy in Everton. A single powerful necromancer could change the flow of a war since wars tended to devolve into battles of attrition, and it was hard to beat someone in a battle of attrition if they could turn every corpse into another soldier. Of course, good, patriotic necromancers were almost always in short supply. Timmy and Katie could easily be the only two in Everton, which would explain the Council’s decision to offer them a pardon against the wishes of the previous Supreme Cleric.

  Before the recent change to his legal status – pardon pending – Timmy had made ends meet in a variety of different, often less than legal, ways. Raiding tombs helped. The riches of long dead kings were rarely taxed if only because the authorities hardly ever knew of their existence, and Timmy certainly wasn’t about to tell them. Preserving the archaeological value of a tomb could also prove to be profitable. There were people who would pay handsomely to learn more about the past, so he could often sell any information he had about an ancient tomb for a fine price, especially if he could guarantee that any traps or other dangers had already been dealt with.

  Alas, there were only so many tombs worth raiding, and he often kept what he stole instead of selling it. There was also the issue of some things being far too dangerous to sell. He might have been a necromancer, but he had a conscience as well as plenty of common sense. Some of the artefacts he’d found over the years were the stuff of nightmares. Sure, an artefact that could bring about the apocalypse via a demonic invasion would fetch an incredible price, but what was the point? If it fell into the wrong hands, he – and the rest of the world – would be dead long before he could enjoy any of the money he made.

  Dead men had no use for money. His master had once said that, and Timmy had accepted it as being one of the few pearls of wisdom that his master had ever been generous enough to give him although he had also been drunk and waving his sword around at the time.

  Squabbling with other necromancers and villains was another way to make money, but it could be dangerous. Long, drawn-out conflicts could also turn into money pits. More than one necromancer he knew of had become impoverished after being dragged into a decades-long conflict that resulted in all of the participants either ending up dead or so poor they wished they were dead. Thankfully, Timmy was skilled in the art of legal-loophole identification. He had managed to set up a number of different accounts that managed to comply with the law while giving him access to revenue streams that should have been barred to a man of his questionable legal status. Over the years, they’d closed many of the loopholes he’d used, but they’d been too late to stop him.

  He would have liked to use his money more transparently since it was only a matter of time before they turned some of loopholes he’d used against him, but his legal status made it tricky. Without the proper legal standing, his assets could be seized although actually taking them when they were defended by hordes of zombies would be easier said than done. However, that was no longer an issue. He might not have earned a full pardon yet, but he’d done enough to secure completely legal access to key financial opportunities. He’d checked, and he’d gotten Gerald to check too. The bureaucrat might not have been the bravest man, but he was an absolute genius when it came to understanding bureaucratic and legal documents. Timmy had even gotten personal confirmation from Vicky and James. The other man had muttered angrily to himself the entire time, which had only added to Timmy’s joy.

  And then there were Alicia and her cookies.

  Alicia’s cookies were extraordinarily good. If he hadn’t already checked them, he would have sworn than she was using some form of magic to make them taste better, and it would have to be truly incredible magic to affect a dragon like Spot. But, no, they really were just that good. He’d spoken to Spot, and the dragon had gleefully informed him that she had plenty of other recipes, and they were all fantastic.

  Timmy hadn’t survived, even prospered, through adversity the way he had without being able to spot an opportunity. And all opportunity came down to a combination of skill, preparation, and good, old-fashioned luck. Information was also critical. Being well informed could easily be the difference between him walking away with more sacks of gold than he could carry and him walking away with nothing more than the clothes on his back.

  Years ago, his master had shoved the books containing the castle’s accounts and budget details at him with a thinly veiled threat to either balance the books or else. Timmy hadn’t known his master for very long back then, but he’d know him well enough to know that he absolutely did not want to find out what ‘or else’ meant. To survive and bring the castle back into financial security, Timmy had not only learned how to cut costs, balance a budget, and find good deals but he had also learned the importance of information.

  He was familiar with all of the major markets in Everton and overseas, and he had learned how to eke out profitable margins in all of them. Currently, he possessed several powerful advantages. He had a castle, large quantities of gold and other valuables, and access to an incredibly large and sophisticated information and logistics network, courtesy of the rats, the friends and contacts he’d made over the years, and the countless zombies at his command. Now that he no longer had to worry about being arrested or imprisoned on sight, those advantages had only grown more potent. He no longer had to hide in the financial shadows. He could, to some degree, act openly and decisively.

  The cookie market in Everton was tough. One of the key issues was transportation and storage. Cookies were perishable goods, and although there was magic capable of preserving food, it often made the food taste bland since it had been designed primarily for military use. As a result, local bakeries bought and sold cookies only in their local area. More powerful preservation magic – the kind that could preserve flavour almost perfectly – was too expensive to use on a large scale. Transporting cookies across the nation was also difficult. Due to their shelf life, transporting cookies via wagon was not fast enough, and transporting them by griffin or wyvern would be prohibitively expensive.

  Bakers were also notoriously secretive. Many of them considered sharing their recipes with anyone except for their chosen successors to be a crime comparable to high treason. Vicky had been forced to intervene more than once
after warring groups of bakers had turned the streets of the capital into a war zone after allegations of recipe theft.

  Attempts to sell fresh cookies nationwide on a regular basis had thus failed repeatedly due to problems with the logistics.

  It didn’t have to be that way.

  One of the first things any necromancer learned how to do was how to preserve bodies. Without a ready supply of useable corpses, necromancers were little better than glorified grave robbers. To that end, necromancers learned how to use their magic to maintain corpses before developing their own runes and seals to help preserve bodies and other organic matter. As a child, Timmy’s master had rationed his food severely, not because they lacked food but because he was that big of a jerk. Timmy had learned through painful trial and error that it was possible to use his magic and the runes and seals he would eventually develop to preserve food without corrupting it and rendering it inedible.

  Later, he’d experienced a break through of sorts after coming across the ‘proper’ runes and seals for food preservation. After careful experimentation and several severe cases of food poisoning, he’d learned how to combine the two sets of runes and seals into something better. No wonder craftsmen and mages were able to charge such exorbitant prices for their products. Preserving food, and particularly its taste, was hard. If things had been different, Timmy could have taken his knowledge and started a company specialising in food preservation. But as a criminal, he would have run the very real risk of having his company and research seized. Now? He might not have a full pardon yet, but he was already entitled to far greater legal protection than before. True, he wasn’t naïve enough to think that legal protection alone would keep him safe. But legal protection plus an army of zombies should do the trick. With his recently improved legal status, he could not only use his knowledge without fear of reprisal but also sell it for a tidy profit.

  Timmy smirked. How would Everton’s cookie market react if there was a group that could not only make delicious cookies but also preserve their flavour for long periods of time while transporting them across the country, all while maintaining prices that were, if not cheap, at least quite reasonable?

  Oh wait.

  There was a group like that.

  He could handle the preservation of the cookies and their flavour, and the rats and his zombies could see to their safe and speedy transport across Everton. All he needed now was an expert cookie maker who was willing to work with a Grand Necromancer. Ordinarily, the odds of meeting someone like that would have been close to zero. Luckily for him, he happened to know just the person. After all, she’d been working for him for years, albeit as a maid.

  “Alicia,” Timmy said. “Let’s talk. We can use my office.”

  * * *

  Alicia stared at Lord Bolton’s chair. It was an exquisitely crafted chair, intricately carved and seemingly made to make whoever sat in it look as regal and imposing as possible. It was also made entirely of bones, quite possibly human bones.

  “Ah, you’re wondering about the chair.” Lord Bolton chuckled. He’d slouched into the chair in a way that Alicia knew would have provoked a comment about his posture from Lady Morrow if she’d been present. “I didn’t choose it. It came with the office. Katie thinks it’s wonderfully atmospheric. Then again, she thinks the same thing about books bound in human skin. Me? I’ve been hoping to get rid of it for years. It might look good, but whoever made it clearly had no idea of the importance of lower back support. Unfortunately, it’s an ancient relic that helps control some of the more… unusual things in the castle and underneath it.” He chuckled again. “Believe me, there are other ways to handle those things, but they involve a bit more blood.” He mimed stabbing someone, and Alicia squirmed. “I have added some cushions to it since bone is so… well, bony, but I made the mistake of getting Katie to make them.” He gestured. “Which is how I ended up sitting on a chair made of bones with bright pink cushions. But enough about the chair, let’s get down to business.”

  Alicia listened with growing incredulity as Lord Bolton explained his idea. It was crazy. It was madness. It would never work. Yet the longer she listened, the more brilliant it sounded. She knew how good he was at planning. He had to be to stay one step ahead of Lady Morrow and the authorities, but this… this was incredible. He outlined their main advantages: excellent cookies, the ability to preserve them and their flavour, and the ability to transport them across the country at virtually no cost. With those three things, they could seize control of the national cookie market. Just the thought of it made her head spin. Was this how villains felt when they thought about conquering the world because if so, it was no wonder so many of them were megalomaniacs.

  Her cookies in every city, town, and village in the country – she could barely wrap her mind around the idea of it. But each word Lord Bolton spoke made it seem less like a dream and more like an opportunity simply waiting for her to reach out and take it. Before she knew it, she found herself agreeing with him although she still had the good sense to hold back when their discussion turned to the specifics of the agreement. She’d have to talk to some of the other servants and her relatives, perhaps even ask the bureaucrat, Gerald, for advice. According to the other servants, Gerald was timid but scrupulously honest and exceptionally good at anything even tangentially related to bureaucracy. However, selling her cookies across the nation was not an opportunity she could ignore.

  “We still have to hammer out the details,” Lord Bolton said. “But we do need to start thinking about a name. Have you got any ideas?”

  Alicia thought back to the morning that had started with the terror of being eaten before turning into one of the most important days of her life: the day a hungry dragon had wandered into the kitchens and convinced her that her cookies really were delicious. “How about… the Hungry Dragon Cookie Company.” Her lips curved up into a smile as she pictured Spot inhaling yet another batch of cookies. “And if we have a name, then we need to have a slogan too. How about… cookies so good that even a dragon can’t resist?”

  Lord Bolton grinned. “Perfect.”

  * * *

  Victoria munched on another cookie. She wasn’t half bad at baking, but these cookies were amazing. It was, as the slogan on the pack proudly proclaimed, a cookie so good that even a dragon couldn’t have resisted. Then again, having met the dragon in question, she highly doubted that Spot would be able to resist eating any cookie, never mind one this good.

  All of the speculation about the people behind the Hungry Dragon Cookie Company amused her. Timmy had done an exceptional job of concealing exactly who owned and operated the company. It was probably for the best. If people knew the magic used to preserve the cookies had originally come from a necromancer, there would be no shortage of screaming and wailing although she doubted that anyone would actually stop eating the cookies. She’d already had to use her magic to prevent her assistants from stealing some whenever they thought she wasn’t looking – the cookies were that good. It made her wonder what else Timmy and other necromancers had hidden up their sleeves. After all, the foremost textbooks on anatomy had all been written by a necromancer who had also possessed healing magic and the desire to experiment.

  It was just a shame that James hadn’t worked it out yet. He’d talked about wishing he could meet the people responsible for making such delicious cookies, and he’d bought enough cookies to last a normal person a year. She gave it a month at the most before he had to buy some more.

  The look on James’s face when he found out would be absolutely glorious. She’d have to break it to him later when she could make sure that someone with image-preserving magic was around. Timmy would never forgive her if he missed out.

  Food Supply

  (Set Shortly After Two Necromancers, a Dragon, and a Vampire)

  Timmy was used to unusual requests. After all, he was a necromancer. Unusual requests came with the territory. Katie, for instance, was a seemingly endless source of unusual requests. W
hether it was a request for a bright pink hydra or a lavender salamander – both of which he’d managed to acquire thanks to knowing so many rare creature dealers – he’d learned that it was generally better to not ask too many questions.

  What possible use could a bright pink hydra have? What good was a lavender salamander? Those were questions that only Katie could answer, and Timmy, eminently sensible person that he was, could not hope to understand his apprentice’s mind. Her eccentricities aside, his apprentice was both highly intelligent and equipped with just enough common sense to avoid doing anything too dangerous without informing him first. Katie might have enjoyed meddling with the primal forces of life and death, but she also enjoyed living. She did not want to become yet another unfortunate necromancer statistic.

  Of course, Katie was still a child. There were times when he had to intervene, but they were few and far between. More often than not, Katie could be counted upon to avoid doing anything that could result in her death, the destruction of the castle, or both. Throughout her apprenticeship, Timmy had done his best to instruct her on the finer points of sensible villainy. He’d already invested a lot of time and effort into training her. The last thing he needed was for her to blow herself up. He’d been fortunate enough to find a good apprentice the first time around. There was no guarantee he’d get that lucky a second time. Fortunately, Katie tended toward minor to middling levels of villainy. She’d shown no inclination toward wanton slaughter, senseless murder, or any other such atrocities. Indeed, the closest she’d come to committing an atrocity was when she’d outfitted a whole group of her favourite zombies in bright pink. With magic like hers, it would be so easy for Katie to become a little psychopath with a penchant for using her shadows to turn people’s insides into their outsides.

  Sam and some of the other more exotic residents of the castle, or rather the lightless caverns of infinite doom, woe, and despair underneath the castle, also came up with their fair share of unusual requests. Most of the time, it was about wanting something new to eat although they weren’t always pleased with the results. Sam had been distinctly unimpressed by caviar, and he hadn’t been able to understand why caviar was more expensive than the peerless miracle that was cake. On another occasion, some of Sam’s fellows had taken a shine to apple cider made using apples from a specific orchard. It had taken everything Timmy had to keep them from leaving the castle in search of the orchard and more cider. He wasn’t sure how the orchard’s owner would have taken the arrival of half a dozen protoplasmic horrors from another dimension, but he doubted that he’d take it well. There would probably be a great deal of screaming and wailing involved, possibly even a heart attack or a stroke, maybe even both.