May Contain Traces of Magic

by Tom Holt

  “That’s right.”

  Broad, slightly patronising smile. “That doesn’t suit us at all,” she said. “The Fey only exist in dreams, you see; on this side of the line, at any rate. We have our own place, on the far side. But we prefer it here. It’s warmer. Also, over there we don’t really exist, not like we do here.” The smile didn’t fade. On the contrary, it froze. “People use coffee to stay awake so they don’t dream and we can’t come through. You can see why we aren’t keen on the stuff.”

  Chris couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Actually,” she went on, “my particular subsection of the Fey have evolved past that. Well,” she qualified, “’evolved’ implies progress; let’s say we mutated, to fill an otherwise neglected ecological niche.”

  She was still just as beautiful as she’d been a moment ago;

  but now, as he looked at her, he couldn’t help thinking about other images: things with too many legs and eyes, pincers, carapaces; things that moved very fast, and laid their eggs in their prey. “Is that right?” he mumbled.

  “You don’t like the sound of that.” She was grinning. “You think it’s creepy.”

  Quite. And crawly, for that matter. “No,” he whimpered. “I don’t know the first—”

  “My sect of the Fey,” she said, “cross the line in music. Think about it,” she added, presumably reacting to the look on Chris’s face. “That’s what music does, it takes you away from here and now to another place. In our case, literally. Instead of travelling through dreams, we ride the music into your head; and once we’re through, we exist.”

  It was as though someone had just turned on the light. Music; the CD player in the car. Every time he’d talked to her, had a conversation, it had been just after he’d played music; usually one of those compilation discs that seemed to breed in the glove compartment, none of which he could ever remember putting there. And just now, after the drive: turn the radio on. And she’d deflected his hand towards the CD player, and—

  “Hang on,” he said. “Now That’s What I Call Really Bad Music 56?”

  She shrugged. “Each of us has what you might call a master key, a piece of music that can get us through, no matter what.”

  “’Shake It Loose’, by the Lizard-Headed Women?”

  “Well,” she said, a trifle defensively, “it’s go to be something that doesn’t get played a lot, or it’d be like living in Piccadilly Circus, portals opening everywhere you look. I chose a song nobody in their right mind would play deliberately. Sorry,” she added with a dazzling smile, “for any inconvenience.”

  That’s why I chose it, of course. Well, at least she was consistent. “Jill said you’re stalking me,” he said. “She said it’s happened before, with SatNavs. And you tried to kill me.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did,” Chris shouted. “When I was in that car in the Ettingate Retail Park. You tried to kill me, but you cut the seat belt instead and I managed to get away.”

  An oh-for-crying-out-loud look on her face; one he’d inspired in many people over the years, but never so intense. “I was rescuing you, you halfwit,” she snapped. “At great personal inconvenience, let me add; I had to arrange for ‘Shake It Loose’ to be played on the Jeremy Vine show, and he never does requests, it was sheer luck one of the technicians happened to fall asleep at just the right moment, and a friend of mine managed to get into his dream. That’s why I was a bit late,” she added. “Sorry about that. But really, you shouldn’t have got yourself into such a mess in the first place.”

  Oh, Chris thought, it’s all my fault; should’ve known, it always is. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “Jill told me—”

  “And if it comes to her word against mine,” she said coolly. “I see.”

  He was mildly startled by that. “Well, yes,” he said. “She’s one of my oldest friends, we’ve known each other since we were kids, and she’s never lied to me or—”

  “And you’re in love with her,” SatNav said, all matter-of-fact, as though she hadn’t just said out loud what he’d been not-thinking for dear life for the last sixteen years. It caught him off guard, like a sudden kick to the balls from a lollipop lady on a level crossing, and he didn’t interrupt as she continued: “I know, it clouds your judgement, doesn’t it? Just ask yourself this, though. Has she ever lied to you? Led you astray?”

  No, Chris tried to say; but the word wouldn’t come out of his mouth. It had launched itself when she said lied, but sort of bounced off led you astray, because there was one thing, one silly little thing—trivial, like Jill always having a plastic carrier bag, completely unimportant in the larger scale of things. But led him astray, she had a point there.

  Jill was the world’s worst navigator. Standing joke among all who knew her, endearing rather than infuriating, given that in all other respects she was so utterly competent. But stick her in a passenger seat and hand her a map, and you were practically assured of a long and interesting ride to places you’d never even heard of before. It was a miracle, they said, that she didn’t starve to death through getting lost between her living room and her kitchen. Of course, nowadays, with satellite navigation and stuff, it really didn’t matter, and naturally Jill had the latest state-of-the-art outfit on her dashboard, and the slight character flaw no longer mattered. But led him astray? Yes, loads of times. But that was silly, completely unimportant, nothing to do with trust and integrity and all those great big things. It was. Really.

  “Not like me,” she said softly. “You always know where you are with me.”

  It was, Chris had to concede, a very eloquent appeal to someone who was always on the move. His life revolved, after all, around two questions: Where am I? What’s the time? And no, she’d never led him astray; never lured him up a dirt track with grass growing up the middle or stranded him on a deserted airfield and told him he was in the centre of Wolverhampton, never tempted him to drive the wrong way down a one-way street or off the edge of a gap in the middle of an unfinished flyover; and when she told him he was four miles from his destination and he’d be arriving there in eight minutes, he could rely on that absolutely, a tiny island of reliability in the great ocean of doubt. Even so.

  “What do you want from me, anyhow?” he said.

  Her eyes glowed faintly. “Your help,” she said. “Please.”

  That didn’t sound right. “Really?” he said. “What could I possibly do that’d help you? I’m just a rep, and you’re a— What did you just say you were?”

  But there was an unmistakably self-satisfied look on her face, a unilateral declaration of victory, that told him she reckoned she’d won. “A princess of the Fey,” she said. “Are you ready for your explanation now, or would you like another coffee first?”

  Where I come from (she said) is very different from here. Everything on this side of the line is so solid; it’s like it’s made up its mind what it’s going to be, and that’s all there is to it. It’s not like that back home. Things change. Everything changes. Between pulling out a chair and sitting down on it, there’s always the risk it might melt away, or turn into a bottomless pit, or a crocodile. Well, you know what it’s like in dreams. The laws of logic and physics are different there. Oh, it’s an exciting, challenging environment, but it can all be a bit fraught. Every time someone gets up to make a speech or a presentation, he discovers he can’t remember his lines and he’s got no clothes on, and you can’t even walk down the street without being chased by wolves that look just like your old geography teacher. It’s a miracle anything ever gets done at all, and as for the trains running on time, forget it.

  I guess that’s why we like it here; more as a place to visit than somewhere you’d actually want to live, but there’s definitely an appeal in knowing that if something was a cement mixer two minutes ago, it’ll most likely still be a cement mixer in five minutes’ time. You’ve got clocks and watches that actually make sense, and as for maps— Don’t get me started on maps. They�
��re just so amazingly cool.

  My lot—the music Fey—like I said, we’re niche creatures. The other Fey don’t like us very much. It’s not right, they reckon, messing with this-side people when they’re awake. It’s sort of a religious issue, really. They say that if God had intended us to cross over in the daytime, He’d have given us a human race made up of shift workers and sleepwalkers. As you’ve probably guessed, we don’t agree. We wanted to be able to get across any time we felt like it, and so we invented music.

  Well, where did you think it came from? It’s not something that occurs naturally, after all—it’s completely artificial, like maths. We sort of bred it into human DNA, gradually, over the millennia; a little trapdoor inside every human head.

  Parasites? That’s a bit harsh. I think “symbiotic” sounds nicer. Like the little birds who pick bits of meat out of crocodiles’ teeth. After all, you get something in return. You get music. Not such a bad deal, is it? Especially since only one in a billion of you knows we even exist.

  Anyway, that’s us. We think we’re harmless, inoffensive creatures who just wanna have fun. Your lot don’t seem to see it that way. Admittedly, there have been times when our lot have gone too far. Only a few years ago, the queen of the orthodox Fey tried to invade your side of the line and exterminate the lot of you, which I’m prepared to admit was entirely uncalled for, and it’s no thanks to us that she failed. But it cuts both ways. Your lot have done some pretty unpleasant stuff too. I mean, look at PCE—

  Oh come on, you must’ve heard of—

  Fine. PCE. Pandemonium Consumer Electronics, since you’ve clearly been living in a cave for the last twenty years. PCE was the pioneer in metaphysical variable state cybernetics, and you know how they did it? Right. They built a new generation of intelligent, intuitive, non-Boolean electronic gadgetry by trapping our people in dreamcatchers, mutilating them and using them to power their products. Computers, yes, but not just computers: dishwashers, DVD players, microwave ovens, air-conditioners, games consoles, you name it. Basically, it was slavery. They caught us, crippled one side of our brains so we couldn’t ever get back to our side of the line, suspended us in stasis fields in sealed boxes—well, I’d rather not go into it, if that’s all right with you. It’s not something any of us like to dwell on. But it kind of explains why Queen Judy felt the lot of you needed wiping out, and why so many of us went along with it.

  Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned, and yes, PCE doesn’t do that stuff any more, though they’re still in business; very much so. Who do you think made me?

  “You?” Chris said. “You mean you were—”

  She smiled and shook her head. “No way,” she said. “After the Queen Judy business, our lot and your lot sat down round a table and actually talked to each other for a change. PCE agreed to end the abductions and the brain surgery and the stasis fields, and in return we supply them with a certain specified quota of Fey every year. It’s not perfect, but—”

  “Hang on,” he interrupted, appalled by what she’d just said. “You’re telling me your government actually sends—”

  She nodded. “Convicted criminals,” she said. “Dissidents. It’s the standard punishment for antisocial behaviour. We’re pretty strict about that sort of thing.”

  “Oh.” He blinked. “Sounds a bit over the top, if you ask me.”

  Shrug. “Depends on your point of view, I suppose,” she said. “In my case, it was disruptive thinking and serial failure to conform to stipulated dress codes. I got seventy years in a SatNav.”

  Chris opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Seventy years—” “Actually, that’s pretty lenient,” she said earnestly. “Please bear in mind, we live practically for ever. We don’t feel physical pain or anything like that, and time works in a very different way as far as we’re concerned. Also—” She turned her head to conceal a distinct hint of embarrassment. “Well, there’s some of us, me included, who’d rather be over here no matter what, even if it means being sealed in a plastic box, telling humans to take the third turning on the right at the next roundabout. In fact,” she added, with a rather guilty grin, “I made legal history back home by being the first convict to appeal against my sentence on the grounds that it was too short. So please, don’t get the idea that I’m not perfectly happy to be here. Quite the opposite. This is so much better than home.”

  He thought about that for almost fifteen seconds, then said, “So you haven’t been trying to—well, escape?”

  “Escape? No way.” She seemed genuinely shocked by the suggestion. “In fact, when my time’s up I’m seriously considering applying for metaphysical asylum and becoming a supernaturalised citizen. So, escaping? Not a bit of it.”

  “But you did,” Chris objected. “Jill said you got out of your box and came after—came after me,” he added lamely. “She said—”

  The raised eyebrow, the set mouth. “I bet,” she replied. “Well, it wasn’t like that at all. I came to find you, partly because I knew you were in danger, but mostly because I need your help. Which is what all this is about,” she went on. “Bringing you here. I think it’s time you knew what you’re caught up in, before you either ruin everything without realising it or get hurt or both.”

  A little voice in his head was yelling But Jill said— He’d have loved to listen to it, but somehow he knew he mustn’t; not yet, at least. “All right,” he said. “Go on, then.”

  It’s about demons (she said).

  I’m assuming you know what they are. Well, I think it goes without saying that my lot dislike them just as much as your lot do. They break into our space just like they do into yours, and they do a lot of damage, and sometimes people get hurt. We try and keep them out, same as you, and when they do get in, we hunt them down. Zero tolerance. Simple as that.

  But it’s not quite so straightforward; well, nothing ever is. There are some demons—a few, very much the minority—who reckon that the traditional way of doing things just isn’t sustainable. They’re worried about how the demon-hunters on this side are gradually learning how to beat them. Oh, it’s no big deal as yet; one in fifty that breaks through actually gets detected in time, and maybe one in five of them gets killed. But the demons who are worried, the dissidents, they think that their lot have been seriously underestimating humans, especially their inventiveness and resourcefulness. The majority reckon that’s rubbish; only a handful of humans even know they exist, they argue, and the authorities would rather see the whole human race wiped out than actually tell them the truth. Which isn’t so far off the mark, as far as I can see, but even so. That elimination rate’s gone up seven per cent in the last five years. A trend like that—

  (Five years. Chris did the mental arithmetic. Since Jill had been in charge. He made a mental note to be impressed, as soon as he could spare the mental capacity.)

  So you see, they’ve got a point. If things go on like they are at the moment, the demons are going to find themselves pretty hard-pressed. Humans are ninety per cent of their food source. Though they find it hard to accept, they could be staring extinction in the face.

  So what? Well, it’s highly unlikely they’d just sit back and accept the inevitable. You’ll start seeing coordinated raids in force, rather than just one or two of them hopping over the line for a snack. Escalation, leading to open war; and even if your lot rise to the challenge and fight back hard enough to win, just think of the implications. I mean, there’s no way the authorities would be able to keep a lid on it if it came to an all-out invasion or something like that, and just think what it’d mean for your lot, suddenly finding out that there are demons out there trying to invade you. Come to that, think what it’d mean if the whole world knew about magic. It’s the sort of thing that’d wreck your entire civilisation.

  Which means, basically, that the dissidents are probably your best chance, as a species. Not a particularly comfortable idea, since they’re so few and their own people hate them so much. You think
humans can be vicious and intolerant. You just can’t begin to imagine what they’re like.

  The thing is, though, it doesn’t actually have to be that way. You see, it’s not the flesh and the blood the demons need to live off. Demons don’t have digestions and metabolisms, they don’t need proteins and vitamins and carbohydrates. What they get their nourishment from is—well, for want of a better word, spirit. Emotional energy. They kill people because it’s the most efficient way of getting the emotions. It’s true; they’ve studied it carefully, done the research, they’re a very thorough species. Typically, a demon attack lasts thirty seconds, from the demon materialising in your dimension to the moment the victim dies. In that thirty seconds, an average human produces more emotional calories — panic, terror, disgust, despair—than it would in twelve years of ordinary life. It’s a simple case of getting the maximum yield for the minimum risk and effort.

  But, the dissidents say, it’s the wrong approach. They argue, it’s like the ways humans make electricity. You can boil more kettles and power more electric lights from milking one thimbleful of uranium than you’d get from fifty dinky little Notting Hill wind turbines in a year; established fact, no arguments. But the uranium will poison the air and the water, and if you go on using it, sooner or later you’ll all start glowing green and die; whereas all the wind turbines do is sit there making a gentle humming noise, which may piss off the house martins but it won’t kill you. Same, they say, with humans and emotion. Instead of going for maximum yield with maximum intrusiveness, much better to use the little-and-often approach.

  Human beings going about their ordinary, miserable lives, the dissidents say, generate enough emotion to feed a thousand times the current demon population, without the demons having to lift a claw to encourage them. Trouble is, it’s all in small amounts, spread around terribly thin. I mean, in any square kilometre of your typical urban environment at any one time, you can reasonably expect to get ten blazing rows, fifteen long-term sulks, say a dozen arguments about whose turn it is to do the washing-up, a couple of cases of road rage, four broken hearts, and a good ninety milligrammes each of greed, lust, envy, anger, resentment and depression. Add that up, you’ve got a square meal for a normal healthy adult demon. The problem, though, is harvesting the stuff. I mean, it’s not like recycling, please sort your emotions and put them outside in the appropriate colour-coded receptacles. Trying to get the demons to live off that would be like trying to relieve famine in a disaster area by flying over it in a bomber at twenty thousand feet, cutting open great big sacks of flour and chucking it out of the bomb doors.