May Contain Traces of Magic

by Tom Holt

  So maybe he’d imagined the whole thing; the writing on the wall, talking back to him. It was a comforting thought, and since he’d scrubbed away the chalk (if there’d ever been any to start with) he had no verifiable evidence; or, in other words, nothing to contradict the must’ve-imagined-it hypothesis. Magical radiation leaking out of the tape-measure and driving him nuts; add to that the delayed shock of his meeting with the demon—or had he imagined that too? No, because Jill had been to the car park, and her instruments had picked up the burn of demonic body heat all over the place. So that had definitely happened, unfortunately.

  The dream was waiting for him as soon as he went to bed, and the pattern repeated as before. He woke up for the third time just after three a.m., and thought the hell with this, I’ll get up and make myself a cup of tea, and perhaps that’ll disturb the cycle.

  It was while the kettle was boiling that the mystery resolved itself; it sort of popped out, like a loose tooth. Where he’d been going wrong, of course, was water polo. Not water polo after all. What he should have been thinking about was polo shirts; to be precise, the one he’d been lent by the government man, with the letters DS on the pocket.

  Quietly as a little mouse, so as not to wake Karen, he crept into the living room, turned on the computer and plugged in the phone jack. Doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou dot delendi-sunt (all one word)—

  Eventually, the home page of the Department of Metaphysics shimmered onto the screen, and there, in the top left-hand corner, was their departmental logo; a hand clutching a badly drawn sword, and under it a scroll with the words delendi sunt—

  Whatever that meant; but now at least he knew what DS stood for. Not that much of a mystery. Chris went back into the kitchen and made his cup of tea; then, since he wasn’t feeling sleepy any more, he clicked on the links page to Supernatural Entities of the British Isles and scrolled down to dryads. He read what it had to say, but there wasn’t really anything that Jill hadn’t already told him, so he switched off and disconnected.

  So she’d come home, had she? One less weirdness to worry about. Presumably they’d keep her there and find some way of breaking into the casing, and then dissect her or whatever you did with stroppy entities. He didn’t feel terribly wonderful about that; but then, she’d tried to cut him open, hadn’t she? In which case, serve her right.

  From there, his thoughts strayed to the demon itself. Logically, he supposed, he ought to be in a right old state about that. His escape had, after all, been as narrow as a country lane; if SatNav hadn’t turned up when she did and chased the demon away, he was fairly sure it’d have killed him, and it was still out there, and it had deliberately targeted him, going to all that trouble and effort. True, now it knew that he didn’t have the information it wanted, so presumably now it would leave him alone, go and hassle someone else—he remembered poor Mr Newsome and winced—but even so, he couldn’t help wondering: where is she? Odd question to ask. At the time, he’d been stone-cold certain he didn’t know the answer, and it was on that presupposition that his belief that he was now safely out of it rested. But suppose he did have the answer, but without knowing it? Possible, since he hadn’t got a clue who she was. He did know a fair number of women, after all, and one of them could be the person the demon was after; could be Jill, for example, or anybody—Karen, Angela the trainee (all this stuff had only started when she arrived in his life), Julie at the office, Karen’s cousin Melanie, anybody at all. Until he could be absolutely certain that he didn’t know the answer to the demon’s question, it really wouldn’t do to get complacent.

  Well, fine; now he had something to worry himself sick about all over again, very well done indeed, but without knowing who she was, he had no way at all of either setting his mind at rest or confirming that he was squarely in the demon’s crosshairs. Naturally, he’d told Jill all about what the demon had asked; she’d just frowned, then shrugged, no suggestions or explanations, and she was the only person he could think of who might possibly know. So: dead end.

  Chris picked up his teacup, and noticed it had left a ring on the cover of the Book

  The Book. Supremely advanced technology but a total dead loss commercially, because it told you what you needed to know, not what you wanted to know. Well, he thought; if ever there was a case of genuine, not to say desperate need, surely this was it. He shifted the cup to the table, rested the Book on his knees and opened it, as stated in the instructions, at random—

  Gandhi; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born 2 October 1869, Porbandar, India.

  He used a word his mother wouldn’t have liked, and closed the Book. No wonder they couldn’t give the bloody things away. It crossed his mind that the demon was simply behind the times and not particularly well up in current affairs; but it had specifically said she, not he, so that ruled Gandhi out as the object of its search. He yawned, and went back to bed, and dreamed he was back at school and having to do the reading in assembly with no clothes on; which, compared to the dreams he’d been having lately, was practically a lullaby.

  “I heard about what happened,” said Angela the trainee as they drove through the outskirts of Telford. “It must’ve been terrible.”

  She really did have a little Suzuki jeep, which showed the sort of attention to detail that demons were capable of, but they’d picked up on things like the US Out Of Kiribati Now sticker in the back window and the door compartment stuffed full of used tissues. You had to admire good fieldwork. He had to admit, though, the demon Angela had been a much better driver.

  “Oh?” Chris said. “Who told you?”

  “The government people rang to find out where I was,” she explained. “Mummy answered; she told them I’d been in my room all day. They told her.” She went to change up into third and got fifth instead. “Sounds like you were really lucky.”

  “I was,” he said. “I’m pretty sure it’d have killed me if—” He hesitated. Had the government people told her about SatNav’s intervention? Probably not. An escaped SatNav entity was just the sort of thing they’d classify, on general principles. He considered telling her anyway, but decided against it. Too much background to explain, and he didn’t feel like going into all that.

  “I was going to ask you,” Angela said, as she swung out to overtake an ambling JCB. The brave little engine whinnied as she flogged it. “How did you get away?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “There was this strap thing holding me in, where the seat belt had been, and it suddenly sort of gave way, and I fell out, and there I was on the tarmac, back in the real world. Otherwise—well, doesn’t bear thinking about, really.”

  He’d hoped that would end the inquiry, but apparently not. “That’s odd,” she said. “Because if they took you into their dimension, presumably they’d be using a level seven containment spell to keep you there, and that’s what would’ve been holding you down, and something like that wouldn’t just break of its own accord. I mean, either they must’ve released it or something else must’ve disrupted it, one or the other.”

  “Is that right?” Chris said uneasily. “Lucky for me, whatever it was.”

  There was definitely something very different about Angela today. It wasn’t just that she was chattier, friendlier, more relaxed, less sullen and withdrawn. The way she looked had changed, too. She looked—well: the difference between scrag end of lamb and words is that words are better unminced. She looked nicer. Lots nicer. All the sharp edges seemed to have gone from her face, there was a bit of colour in her cheeks, if he didn’t know better he could’ve sworn she’d filled out a bit. The result wasn’t bad, actually, though of course that was none of his business. Even so; he couldn’t help glancing sideways, while she was busy not mashing a cyclist into the side of a parked van. Make-up? He couldn’t see any, but he was no expert—

  Make-up, he thought; we sell that. Instaglamour cream, available in four handy sizes. One of the few advantages that the JWW product had over its rivals, one which he kept on forgetting to men
tion when he was pitching it in the shops, was that it didn’t just spruce up the way you looked, it improved your personality as well; your voice sounded nicer, people believed what you told them, your jokes were suddenly funny, you were generally more fun to be with—though of course you had to be careful not to overdo it, as Tony Blair had found out to his cost. Still, it worked, which was more than could be said of everything in the JWW range—

  It was like the old hairspray commercial: was she or wasn’t she? Hard to tell. If she was, it could only have been a little bit, a quick dab on each cheek and the tip of the nose, but that was what they recommended in the little leaflet; just a little to start with, or people would notice, and gradually work your way up. Or maybe she was just that much more relaxed, or something had happened to put her in a good mood, and without the spiky attitude he was seeing her as she really was. Maybe it was just because she was driving her own car rather than being driven in someone else’s. Whatever; it meant that today promised to be slightly less wearing than Thursday, and that couldn’t be bad.

  “Is this the right road?” Angela asked. “I don’t know this area.”

  Chris nodded. “Straight on till you come to a ‘I-junction.’” For some reason, his voice faltered as he said it. “Then left and immediately right.”

  “Thanks.” She flicked hair away from her face. “I’ve got a rubbish sense of direction. What I could do with is one of those SatNav things.”

  The tone of voice so carefully pitched, but still not good enough; he felt as though someone was running a wire brush over the soles of his feet. “They’re all right,” he said. “But it doesn’t do to rely on them.”

  “Really? I’d heard they were pretty good.”

  “They can let you down,” he replied. “You’re better off with a map.”

  (Not always true, he reflected, thinking of the jinxed map that had taken him to the Ettingate Retail Park. Basically, you couldn’t trust anything; and then he remembered that a wall had recently told him that. And he’d been trying so hard not to think about it—)

  They’d come to call on Mercian Magic, one of his better customers; whether or not the manageress fancied him, as some of the unkinder voices in the office had been heard to suggest, they always ordered in well on the new lines and, to do them justice, managed to get rid of them. Properly speaking, it wasn’t the right day, but he’d phoned ahead and yes, they could see him at nine-forty; a nice easy call, he’d promised himself, to ease himself back into the swing.

  As Chris got out, he felt his phone clunk against something in his jacket pocket: the tape-measure, just to make him feel a tiny bit more secure. “Tell you what,” he said, as they walked up to the shop door. “I’ll start off with the usual stuff, and then you can pitch them the new fines. If you feel like it, of course.”

  He had no idea why he’d offered, but Angela squealed “Ooh, yes please” before he could come up with a viable weaselling-out strategy, so that was that. “Um, you do know about the—”

  She nodded. “I’ve been reading up on our product portfolio,” she said. “Which one do you most want to shift?”

  “BB27K,” he said immediately; no need to think about that.

  She smiled. “Well, if they want a testimonial, you can honestly say they work.”

  Maybe I liked her better when she was sullen, Chris said to himself, and pushed open the door.

  There was some man he didn’t know behind the counter; a big, square man who looked like a builder. “Hello,” he said. “I’m here to see Christine.”

  The man looked at him. “Rep?”

  “That’s right. Chris Popham, JWW Retail, and this is my associate, Angela—” Screw it, he couldn’t remember her surname. This is my associate Angela made her sound like a faded blonde in fishnets who passed him the top hat with the rabbit in it and got sawn in half. Still—

  “Christine’s left,” the man said, with just a hint of smugness. “I’m the new manager. John Iconodule.”

  “Ah.” Briefly disconcerted, but a good recovery. Chris held out his hand, which Mr Iconodule apparently failed to see. “Pleased to—”

  “You aren’t down in the book,” Mr Iconodule said.

  Chris smiled feebly. “Well, it’s not actually my usual day, but I did phone through—”

  Mr Iconodule frowned, held up a hand as though commanding a dog to sit, scrabbled in a small sheaf of bits of paper, found one, smoothed it out and scowled at it.

  “Ah, right,” he said. “Stupid girl took the message, can’t read her writing. So this is you, then.”

  “Suppose it must be,” Chris said. It was supposed to be airy banter, but it came out sounding half-witted. “Look, if it’s not convenient, I can come back.”

  “That’d be a bit pointless, since you’re here,” Mr Iconodule said, raising an eyebrow. “You’d better make it quick, though. I’ve got Zauberwerke coming in at ten.”

  A good pitch is a thing of light and air, a gossamer-light touch on the customer’s heart and mind. The tone is brisk but chatty, posited on the assumption that of course the customer wants as much of this excellent merchandise as the seller can spare him; fortunately, since he’s a favoured client and a personal friend, he can usually be accommodated. Phrases like “This is going to do really well for you” and “I think this is exactly what you’ve been looking for” should dart out like white doves from the magician’s hat, inspiring the client, making him feel good about his commercial judgement and breadth of vision. Businesslike, to be sure; but not so intense that the negotiations can’t be put on hold for five minutes while conversation is made about the wife’s back, the daughter’s GCSE grades, the football, or the number of VAT inspectors required to change a light bulb.

  This pitch wasn’t like that. Chris could feel himself wallowing, like a car stuck in mud, and the harder he revved his charm, the more the wheels spun. Mr Iconodule wasn’t interested in JWW’s new, improved bottled dreams or the Haitian Surprise melting wax (pins sold separately). All he wanted was another nine dozen of the DW6, and he kept glancing down at his watch.

  Desperation time. “In that case,” Chris said, “my colleague would like it if you could spare her a minute of your time to hear about our new line in portable folding parking spaces. Angela?”

  Such a difference. For the first thirty seconds, he was stunned; then furiously jealous; then he pulled himself together and started paying close attention, in the hope of learning how it was done. That didn’t do him much good. Angela was brisk but chatty, rewriting the rules of engagement so that she was the one doing the customer a favour, businesslike but not intense, pausing for digressions on house prices, ice hockey and reality TV. When she finally released him, she’d got an order for eight dozen BB27Ks and helped him see the error of his ways about the bottled dreams, the melting wax and the Miracle Sprout padded insoles (guaranteed to leave a trail of spring flowers wherever you walk; may contain traces of chlorophyll).

  “Is that the time?” she said. “We’d better leave it there for now, then. Didn’t you say you’d got Zauberwerke coming in at ten?”

  Mr Iconodule gave her a slightly dazed look. “Forgotten about him,” he mumbled. “Sod it, yes. Not sure why I’m even bothering, they’ve never got anything worth having.”

  (And Chris thought: that settles it. Instaglamour cream; which is unethical, and banned, and if she gets caught selling to the customers with it on it’ll be me that gets the bollocking. On the other hand—)

  “Thanks,” Angela said as they left the shop, “that was fun. I can see how you get a sort of rush out of doing this.”

  (There was a jar of it, he remembered, in his sample case. Just a tiny little smudge on the tip of his nose and the point of his chin; nobody’d ever know—)

  She opened the car door for him, and he climbed in and pulled down the seat belt, ready to clip it on. The feel of the webbing was unpleasantly familiar; the demons had copied that exactly, too. He could remember how it had buckled as he drov
e his fingernails into it.

  “Where next?” Angela was saying; asking him for directions. You know, as in At the end of the road, turn—It took him a moment to get his mind back; it had strayed off, like a bad dog. “Back onto the ring road,” he said, “and then we want the B194 as far as—”

  Chris was pretty sure what she’d done; the question was, why? Made no sense. There were all sorts of reasons why someone should want to daub on the Instaglamour. It could get you love, popularity, the trust of the electorate (though the discerning buyers in Hollywood, Westminster and DC tended to go for Zauberwerke’s LikeMe; twenty per cent more effective and without the unfortunate dermatological side effects). It could make you adored, worshipped, revered. It could even shift BB27Ks, though of course you weren’t supposed to do that.

  But why should Angela the trainee put the stuff on just to spend a day doing the rounds with him? If she’d read the little booklet that came inside the box, she must have seen the Dire Warnings section: apply not more than once every ten days, remove with JWW GlamourOff within six hours, failure to observe safety precautions may result in lasting physical and spiritual damage or death, and that’s if you’re lucky. The natural assumption was that she wanted him to like her, or she was anxious to make a good impression on the customers, but neither of those would wash. After all, she was trainee management, graduate entry, being put through uni by the firm because they believed she was destined for greatness. She had no reason to be interested in anything here; she was just passing through, because she’d been ordered to, and it didn’t matter whether anybody liked her or not, or whether she impressed some underachieving rep who’d never make it off the road and into management. As for—well, a personal, as opposed to a business motive, he was inclined to doubt that, in the same way that he was sceptical about the sun being a fiery chariot drawn by milk-white horses. In which case—