May Contain Traces of Magic

by Tom Holt

  When absolutely all else fails definitively, consult Help. Back to the index, apply quivering fingernail. He got—

  For Help, shout “Help!”

  Oh, for crying out loud, he thought. “Help!” he yelled. His voice dopplered away down the tunnel, the sound bending into strange and unnerving contortions. The page flickered, and read:

  Help not required. Please make another application

  “Yes, it fucking is,” he shouted at the Book. “I’m going to die, you stupid object. Tell me how to get out of this, quickly.” Flicker.

  Incorrect application. See details? “What? Oh, yes, all right.”

  Your JWW Retail The Book Of All Human Knowledge has been precisioneered to supply you with the data you need, when you need it. In order to provide you with the best service possible, your JWW Retail The Book Of All Human Knowledge applies advanced filtering technology to assess and determine your most urgent and pressing need Where the JWW Retail Book Of All Human Knowledge’s assessment is at variance with your own, rest assured that the product’s thaumaturgically™ controlled judgement is almost certainly superior to your own.

  Salesmen are like priests; they can only operate effectively if their faith is unshakeable. Once the thin, sharp blade of doubt penetrates the armour of unquestioning belief, it’s time to book your place in the handcart, if possible specifying a seat facing away from the handles, for a trip to the bad place. Sure, the customers complained about the Book. They complained a lot. They said it was a useless piece of shit, only fit for regulating wobbly tables, they were insulting the intelligence of their clientele just by having it in the shop. But they said the same about everything, and they only did it in the hope of screwing Chris for bigger discounts, or out of the primitive tyre-kicking instinct that’s so deeply rooted in us all. The thought that, just for once, they might have a point came as a very nasty blow, and almost made him fall off his hummingbird.

  “Screw you,” he said, therefore. “I’m about to die, I need help, not a bloody history lesson.”

  Incorrect application. Your JWW Retail The Book Of All Human Knowledge comes preloaded with Know Thyself 2.0, the latest in character assessment software, and has determined that you are a person of exceptional intelligence and resourcefulness, more than capable of dealing with the physical threat you are currently facing without the need for assistance from your JWW Retail The Book Of All Human Knowledge. Should you wish to be advised about the genuinely urgent danger you are presently in, please start a new application.

  He closed his eyes. “Gandhi, right?”

  Correct. Submitting application. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born 2 October 1869, Pbrbandar, India. Best known—

  Chris slammed the Book shut, toyed with the idea of dropping it down the shaft, realised he couldn’t be bothered, and stuffed it back in his pocket. Story of my life, he thought; someone else always knows better. Wanted to do Art and Drama for GCSE, got told don’t be stupid, what you want to do is Business Studies and Maths. Wanted to be a sorcerer; no, he didn’t, he wanted to be a rep. Wanted to marry Jill; got Karen instead. No point in getting worked up about it at this late stage. Really, it was a question of perspective; as in, is there really any merit in getting upset about losing a life as lousy as mine? Well, no. Just a pity that the poor hummingbird should’ve been put to so much trouble for nothing.

  Unless, of course (the thought hit him like a hammer) he’d been missing something. After all, the Book was a hundred per cent reliable and accurate. Guaranteed.

  “Bird,” he said.

  “Tweet.”

  “I’m going to feel such a twat if this works, he thought. Take me up.”

  “Tweet.”

  Chris felt the increase in wingbeat tempo through the soles of his shoes. By now, what with cramp and ankle fatigue, he was having trouble just standing still. As the bird started to rise, he felt himself wobble alarmingly, and had to wave his arms about to keep his balance. As the ascent continued, however, he got the hang of it and kept perfectly still. To keep his mind off what was happening, he thought: yes, but why did Honest John push me down an enchanted toilet in the first place? Furthermore, what’s going to happen when I get to the top and he realises I’m back? Are we going to have to go through all this again, or should I do something brave and aggressive, like cut his head off with the tape-measure?

  He really didn’t like the thought of that, and tried to talk himself into believing that it had all been an accident, or a misunderstanding; an ill-judged practical joke that had gone a bit further than it should have done. But he wasn’t that persuasive. The bastard had definitely pushed him, and although it was true enough that ifs a wise man that knows his own toilet, chances were that he’d done it with malice aforethought.

  Chris considered the chances of being able to sneak out of the shop unnoticed, and put them at around four to one. The question was, however, did he want to creep away, as though he was the one who’d done something wrong, or was he prepared to stop being the universal victim and do something about it?

  Well, no, in case Honest John thumped him and threw him back down the bog. Making a stand, drawing a line in the sand, fighting for your fundamental human rights are all very well if the circumstances are with you—if you’ve got a gun and the bad guy hasn’t, for example, or if you’re backed up by a large number of big, ferocious supporters. Otherwise, you’re essentially encouraging the culture of violence and oppression by giving the thumper something to thump.

  He was nearly there. As his eyes came level with the rim of the toilet seat, he whispered, “Stop,” and the bird obligingly obeyed. He looked round, as far as his limited field of vision would let him. No Honest John, nothing at all except the toilet-roll holder and a partial view of a stack of cardboard boxes in the opposite corner. “Up,” he said; and when the moment was right, he stepped off the bird onto the seat, slipped, fell forward and crashed into the pile of boxes.

  They weren’t hard or sharp-edged or anything, but as they collapsed around Chris they made a noise like a roll of thunder. He scrabbled about until he found his feet, thinking, It’s a big shop, well, a tall shop, anyway, John’s bound to be downstairs serving a customer, he won’t have heard—

  “Bloody hell,” said Honest John. “You’re back.”

  He was standing in the doorway holding a big mug of coffee, and the look on his face was simply weary, a man having to deal with a tiresome nuisance that he thought he’d got sorted; and then he sighed. “All right,” he said. “Back you go,” and he went to put the mug down—

  Later, when he was replaying the scene in his mind for the seventh or eighth time, Chris decided it was probably the sigh that did it, though he gave himself some credit for spotting the strategic moment, when John’s gaze was off him and he was concentrating on putting the mug down without spilling it. Where the technique came from, he had no idea, since the last time he’d been in a fight had been when he was eleven, and he’d lost conclusively. He quite liked the hypothesis that there were invincibility charms woven into the polo shirt, but it was probably just beginner’s luck. In any event, his kick landed inch-perfect, with a fair degree of weight behind it.

  Honest John doubled up without a sound, sort of hung in the air for a moment, then collapsed sideways, like a stack of bean cans when you sideswipe it with your trolley. Chris stared down at him for over two seconds, and all he could think of was how very, very upset John was going to be when he recovered from the pain and got up again. It was that (he decided later) rather than righteous fury that prompted the course of action that followed.

  He fumbled the tape-measure out of his pocket, knelt down, pulled out fourteen inches of blade, brought it as close as he dared to the side of John’s neck, and tried to think of what to say. It always came so easily in the movies, some Chandlerian wisecrack, but he couldn’t help thinking how embarrassing it’d be if John suddenly jumped up and smacked him in the mouth while he was still in mid-aphorism. Anger would’ve been rea
lly useful, but he’d mislaid it at some point. He settled for “Excuse me.”

  John’s eyes opened and tried to focus on him. “Mm.”

  “Sorry,” Chris said, before he could stop himself. “Look, do you know what this is?”

  “Pantacopt,” John mumbled. “Put the fucking thing away before you do me an injury.”

  “Sorry,” Chris repeated, “but no, not until you’ve told me why you tried to—”

  The difference between men of violence and ordinary people is that the former don’t bluff and the latter do. No earthly use threatening to cut someone’s head off, even if you’re holding an extraordinarily powerful magic weapon a quarter-inch from their jugular vein, unless you’re really prepared to do it. The man of violence always knows you haven’t got the determination, which is why he has no trouble in taking the weapon away from you and turning it against you. Unless, of course, you’re a complete butterfingers—

  A moment of absolute silence; and then Chris thought, in a deep chamber of his mind where the panic couldn’t get through: Hang on, shouldn’t there be blood? And shouldn’t the body be sort of twitching horribly about; automatic vestigial nerve activity and stuff?

  The head lay perfectly still where it had fallen, but the lips parted, moved soundlessly for a second or two, then said, “You clown.”

  Later, he was mildly proud that his first, overwhelming reaction had been relief. “Fucking hell, John,” the words came tumbling out, “I thought I’d killed you. Are you—?”

  “Immortal,” the head replied irritably; and then, “I thought you knew that.”

  “There’s rumours in the trade, John, but I never really—”

  “You bastard! You dangerous bloody lunatic” The eyes rolled. “For all you knew, you could’ve actually killed me.”

  “It was an accident, John, really, I didn’t mean—”

  “Bloody hell.” The body shook a little, as though something was making a monumental effort to get it to move, but not quite managing it. “You do realise what you’ve done, don’t you? Fucking pantacopt wounds, you can’t rejoin them. You knew that, you arsehole.”

  “I really—”

  “Which means,” John went on, ignoring him, “that, since I’m immortal, I’m going to have to go around for the rest of eternity with my head stuck to my neck with bloody gaffer tape.”

  “Oh.”

  “Too bloody right, oh. You might want to think about that for a moment. No sudden movements. Think of all the things I won’t be able to do, for fear of my head coming off and rolling across the floor. For ever and ever,” he added, with a wealth of feeling. “And don’t you dare say superglue, or I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

  “I’m really sorry, John,” Chris whimpered. “Look, where do you keep the tape? I’ll—” He paused. No sudden movements, John had said. And even a twelfth-dan martial arts master would have trouble beating someone to a pulp if he could only move really, really slowly in case his head fell off.

  When your enemy is pathetically helpless, it’s not so hard being tough. “I’ll get the tape for you, John,” Chris said (voice starting off a bit wobbly but firming up) “if you’ll tell me why you pushed me down the bog. Otherwise—”

  “Fuck you, I’ll get it myself.” The eyes closed, screwed up with effort. Nothing happened.

  “Why did you push me down the toilet, John? Come on, it’s a fair question.”

  John’s next remarks demonstrated a very limited vocabulary, but didn’t constitute an acceptable answer. So Chris repeated the question.

  “Like I’m about to tell you.”

  Chris shrugged. “No answer, no gaffer tape. Your choice.”

  The scowl shifted emphasis a little, away from anger towards apprehension. “I can’t tell you,” John said. “If I do, they’ll—”

  “They’ll do what, John?” Inspiration. “Something worse than—oh, I don’t know, using a pantacopt to dice your stupid head like an onion? Even gaffer tape’s got its limits, you know.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.” Scornful, but just the tiniest crack of doubt.

  “I wouldn’t want to,” Chris said. “Like I wouldn’t want to cut anybody’s head off, even if they’d just shoved me down a toilet.” Maybe, just maybe, he was winning.

  “How’d you get back up again, anyhow? I thought you didn’t have the gift, so—”

  “Maybe you were wrong.”

  “You wouldn’t do it.” But this time it was a self-negating statement. Just to press the advantage home, Chris picked the tape-measure up off the floor and looked at the head with what he hoped was a sort of mental-geometry expression. “I’ve got friends, you know,” John said. “They’ll come looking for you.”

  “Would they be the ones who told you to flush me down the bog, John? Or were they a different lot of friends?”

  “You don’t scare me, you—”

  “I feel really sorry for you,” Chris said. “I mean, living through all eternity’s got to be bad enough, but all eternity in slices—”

  “All right,” John replied, and his tone of voice suggested that they weren’t going to be friends any more. A part of Chris, small but real, mourned for the loss of a really stonking big order. “I’ll tell you what I know, and then you can bugger off and never come back. Right?”

  “If that’s what you want, John.”

  Honest John sighed. “It was demons,” he said. “They told me if I didn’t do it, they’d lock me up in a cave in the heart of a mountain. Satisfied?”

  Chris didn’t feel very good about that. An immortal wouldn’t starve to death, or suffocate when all the air was used up. He’d just get very, very bored, waiting for the rain and the wind to erode the mountain away. “I’m sorry,” he said; and this time he meant it. “All right, can you tell me their names? What they looked like?”

  Another sigh. “Demons don’t have names, fuckwit. In fact, they’re allergic to them—I thought everybody knew that. And they looked like demons. That’s it.” John sounded sincere enough.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Like it says over the door,” the head added, and its lips twitched just a little bit. “Honest John.”

  Well, quite. “All right,” Chris said. “I’ll fetch the gaffer tape.” He stood up, knees stiff after all that crouching, then paused and added, “Where does the tunnel go to?”

  “Not a clue. Why don’t you go back down there and find out for yourself?”

  Chris got the tape. It was a tricky job, supporting the head with one hand and applying the tape with the other; it got tangled, and he dropped the head a couple of times, which didn’t improve John’s temper. The result looked a bit like a Christmas present wrapped by a five-year-old.

  “Now remember,” he said nervously, as he bit through the tape and smoothed down the end, “no sudden movements, or—”

  Presumably, reattaching the head completed some circuit or other; John immediately came to life, sat up and made a grab for Chris’s ankle. He missed, and the jerking motion was too much for the gaffer tape; John’s head came unstuck just above the nape of the neck, toppled forward and fell off. “Shi—” it said on the way down, and then the bump as it landed must’ve stunned it. Oh well, Chris thought, you do your best for people and this is how they thank you for it.

  It was only then, as he went back downstairs into the main area of the shop, that it occurred to him to wonder what had become of Angela. No sign of her in the shop, and she wasn’t waiting for him at the car. No surprise there; but where had she gone, and what had she done? More to the point, what had she refrained from doing? He thought about that. He’d nipped off to the toilet and hadn’t come back. How long he’d been there he wasn’t entirely sure, but at least a couple of hours, thanks to the Book. Too much to expect that she’d guessed something was wrong and rushed off to call for help; as witness the complete absence of SWAT teams, black helicopters from Jill’s demon-hunters. The likeliest explanation was that John, having pus
hed Chris down the loo, had gone back and told her that her colleague had been suddenly called back to the office or some such implausible drivel, which she had naturally believed. At that very moment she was probably sitting on a train on her way home, thinking harsh thoughts about inconsiderate jerks who swan off and leave other people stranded. Yes, Chris thought, but wouldn’t she have thought it was odd that he hadn’t taken the car?

  The car. He looked at it and felt a surge of passionate relief. Climb in, lock the door, start the engine and drive away, safe in his small steel sanctuary, where he’d face nothing more lethal than the homicidal antics of his fellow road users. There were times when he believed he was only truly happy in his car; alone, not being hassled by other people, with the seat adjusted just how he liked it, the radio to entertain him, the broad sweep of the open road offering him endless possibilities. True, it was a bit disturbing to listen to himself sounding like a sentimental version of Jeremy Clarkson, but he couldn’t help the way he felt Home is where the clutch is, and that was all there was to it.

  Before he got in, he peered round inside, looking for demons. Silly, because how would he know if one was there? A bit like going down into the cellar with a torch looking for the future. He sat down, locked the doors, put on his seat belt and turned the key—

  She was back.

  Chris was so used to seeing her there, her black plastic casing fixed to the windscreen with a rubber sucker pad and a clamp, that it took him a moment to realise what he was looking at. But it was her all right. He recognised her screen, her controls, her little bit of black flex that connected her to the lighter socket. But—he scrabbled about in his memory, and was absolutely positive about it—she hadn’t been there earlier, when they’d driven up here, when he’d parked the car before calling on Honest John.