Ziff under fire

Part 39 - Yield Varlot

I spun around just as Murga came through the kitchen door. I squirted a jet of foam at his face but he caught it on one arm and sprayed himself with a can of Dry-up so the foam disintegrated into a sandy dust. He laughed scornfully as he directed the Dry-up spray at my nozzle and kept coming. I squirted foam at him from every angle trying to avoid his Dry-up spray and we fenced like this until he was close enough to grab my Immobilfoam nozzle. He twisted it from my grip and turned the spray onto me.

I tried to grab his bottle of Dry-up but I was losing the fight when, 'Guluk Gloik,' Dunc fell out of the sky landing heavily with both webbed feet on Murga's head knocking him flat. I groaned as the Dry-up can rolled out of reach and Murga started to get up.

Dunc pirouetted on one webbed foot and flipped the Dry-up can towards me with a wing tip. I managed a left hand catch and sprayed my right arm free of the congealing foam. I just managed to grab the foam nozzle before Murga grabbed me in a bear hug which triggered the nozzle, firmly gluing me to Murga's overcoat and burying both the Dry-up can and the foam nozzle.

Murga picked me up with one sticky arm and marched back into the kitchen where Triple Oh was trying to stand up. He groaned and rolled over. 'Once more into the breach.'

Murga shrugged his overcoat off and dumped it, with me still attached, on to the floor. He swung a boot at Triple Oh's head which was a mistake because Triple Oh grabbed the boot and twisted. Murga yanked his pistol from its holster just before he crashed to the floor and fired it into the ceiling.

Meanwhile, under the cover of Murga's heavy coat, I wiggled the Dry-up spray can enough spray the Immobilfoam. It took me a few seconds to free the backpack and then the pistol went off again.

I looked at around in alarm but the bullet must have missed because they were both on their feet and wrestling. The pistol had dropped to the floor.

I was trying to get a clear shot at Murga with the spray nozzle but I got too close. He snatched the nozzle and purple foam squirted in all direction as he wrestled with Triple Oh.

'Yield varlot. Thou art arrested,' Triple Oh gasped.

'You are too slow, fat man,' Murga roared as he tripped and they both fell over. Blobs of purple foam, decorating the walls and the floor and both of them, began congealing and their convulsions slowed. With a finally burst of energy Murga dropped the nozzle, picked up the pistol and stood up. 'You will pay dearly for zdis, fat man,' he snarled.

Behind him, Dunc and Beryl skidded through the doorway at the exact moment I picked the nozzle up and squirted the foam at Murga.  He ducked and Dunc's head disappeared in a blob of purple foam.

Murga aimed the pistol at Triple Oh's head.

I watched helplessly at a sudden burst of sound, brup, brup. Murga was suddenly splashed with yellow paint as his pistol went off with a crack. He spun around and fell over with a crash.

'Pretty good ammo,' Beryl said calmly. 'I didn't expect it would work fast enough. I like the colour . . . canary yellow, I think.'

Murga was sprawled on his back, eyes wide open, and splotched with patches of yellow dye where four of Kozak's special ammunition had hit him.

I checked Triple Oh for injuries. He seemed okay. Murga's shot must have missed.

Beryl knelt and checked Murga's carotid pulse. 'He'll live, I guess.'

'Glurk,' Dunc honked. He was staggering blindly around in circles, his head neatly covered in Immobilfoam.

Beryl sprayed Dunc with Dry-up and as soon as he could move his beak he was offering advice. 'That's Ondy's size 15 boot. His head must be at the other end.'

Beryl turned Dry-up spray on to the pile of congealing, but still squirming, Immobilfoam wrapped around Triple Oh. It looked like a giant purple egg with boots sticking out of it.

The foam disintegrated to a fine sand where the Dry-up hit it revealing a round pink shape with a small tattoo.

Beryl squealed with laughter. 'This is too funny,' she shrieked. 'I gotta get a picture of this. Now where did I put my cell phone?'

'Heh, heh, gloyk. I recognized the tattoo,' Dunc honked. That's Triple Oh's rear end. Where'd his pants go?'

I used Beryl's Dry-up spray on the rapidly hardening foam and slowly Triple Oh's head appeared. I gently sprayed his face as he sucked in a huge lungful of air. 'Thankee kindly, master Ziff,' he gasped.

Still giggling, Beryl took a few pictures. 'By the way, it's all clear outside,' she announced. 'The last one surrendered but some of them are wounded. I need a first aid kit.'

'Are you okay?' she asked.

'Thankee for your belated concern,' Triple Oh rumbled. 'I am well enough. You will find a first aid kit in my backpack but I would appreciate it if someone would cover my exposed butt first. It is getting cold.'

Beryl jogged outside to help the wounded Gestapo.

'Ziff,' Triple Oh said. 'A thousand pardons for my poor performance. I am getting out of shape. Kindly spray it little on my left side, my arm is going to sleep.'

As soon as he was freed, he wrapped the coat around his waist and squirted Dry-up at the blobs of foam on Murga's face.

Triple Oh injected anaesthetic into his neck with a hypodermic syringe. 'That should keep him quiet long enough.'

We found my parents laid out in a corner of the living room, unconscious.

'Murga's knockout gas,' Triple Oh announced after a brief examination. 'I have the antidote.'

He pulled a small bottle from his pouch, sprayed something into their noses and they woke up coughing.

Triple Oh bowed with a theatrical flourish as I introduced my parents. They had seen him once before in the Tian mountains but only at a distance. 'I am enchanted to meet the parents of my good friend, Ziff.'

Beryl came back with the first aid kit and started cleaning a cut on Triple Oh's face and then made him bend over while she put a field dressing on his butt.

I told my parents what had happen while they had been unconscious but I left out the terrifying bits and made it all seem like a joke.

When I explained that Triple Oh worked for the Time Agency to protect Shakespeare, he said, 'Friends, countrymen, I come to praise Caesar not to bury him.'

'I think you are misquoting Shakespeare again,' I told him.

'Marry come up, I shall admonish him, for a typographical error. Perhaps, I should say, "a quillographical mistake."'