May Contain Traces of Magic

by Tom Holt

  “You think I know where she is, right? This—”

  “The one who is to come. That’s right.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t know who she is, so how could I possibly—?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Said quietly, pleasantly; statement of a fact so obvious it hardly counted as a contradiction. She smiled at him.

  “No, I don’t,” he said irritably, raising the aggravation level to mask the guilt that came with the lie. “If I knew, I’d tell you, now that you’ve explained. But—”

  “We can smell her on you,” she said.

  Oh. He’d been right about that, then. “Can you?”

  “Oh yes.” Friendly nod. “That’s why we’ve been following you, trying to have a quiet word with you, only you wouldn’t—”

  “A quiet word,” Chris repeated, and this time the anger wasn’t synthetic at all. “You call what you did to me at the Et— at the car park place a quiet word, do you?”

  A sad look. “We’re really sorry about that,” she said. “We misjudged you. We thought you were weak and cowardly, and that the easiest thing to do would be to scare it out of you. It was a really stupid thing to do, and we apologise unreservedly.”

  Um, he thought. Can’t say fairer than that. On the other hand, if SatNav hadn’t come along when she did and cut the seat belt—”You were going to kill me,” he said.

  “We made threats, to scare you. We’re sorry.”

  “You were going to kill me,” he went on, “because I’d told you I didn’t know where she was, and you believed me. You could see I was telling the truth. So why the hell are you still bugging me now?”

  “We did believe you, yes. We were wrong.”

  “So you’re saying I’m a liar?”

  She shook her head, clearly in great distress. “No, it’s not like that. You see, we know you’ve been in contact with her, there’s absolutely no way we could be wrong about that, but obviously you don’t realise who or what she is. And why should you, after all? As far as we can tell, you’re not the sort of person who ought to be involved at all. It must just be sheer accident. I know it sounds screwy—”

  “Actually,” Chris said quietly, “the same idea had occurred to me.”

  “Well, there you are. It’s really unfortunate, and we do sincerely, genuinely apologise for the inconvenience, but you’ve got to see it from our point of view, you’re the only lead we’ve got, and the thought that one of our people is over on your side of the line, alone, frightened—We’ve got no choice, we’re sure you can see that. Will you help us? Please?”

  Something new here, and he didn’t think he was going to like it. “I just told you, I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.” She was looking Chris straight in the eye, her lovely face shining with hope. “It’d only take a minute, we promise it won’t hurt or do you any harm, and it’d mean so much to us. Of course we’ll understand if you say no, but we’re sure that now you understand, you’ll want to help us. Go on, please.”

  Jesus, he thought. They terrify you, chase you, kidnap you, flush you down bop, get at you in your sleep and then they ask you nicely. The ruthlessness of the CIA, the persistence of a Jehovah’s Witness, the face of an angel and the dumb charm of a cocker spaniel. Help, he tried to say, but his mouth refused. “Please?”

  “What would it involve?” he croaked. “In, um, layman’s terms.”

  “Oh, nothing to it,” she said quickly. “We just make a tiny little hole in your head and take a peep inside your brain. It doesn’t hurt, it’s the sort of thing your doctors do every day, except they stick horrid bits of sharp metal in you and we just look.”

  “Just look.”

  Confident nod. “A hundred per cent non-invasive. And of course we’ll be doing it on your side of the line, so you’ll be asleep the whole time and won’t feel a thing.”

  Not sure about that. “What about this side of the—?”

  “Silly,” she said, smiling. “This side you haven’t got a body, have you? So, no body, no nasty old nerves and synapses to feel pain with. It’ll be just like having a bright light shone on you.”

  Chris kept still and quiet for three seconds or so. Then he said: “If that’s all there is to it, drill a little hole and take a look, why are you asking me? Why haven’t you just held me down and got on and done it?”

  A look of horror crossed her face. “Without your permission? We couldn’t do that, it’d be—well, we just couldn’t, that’s all.”

  “You don’t seem so very fussed about killing people.”

  “Yes, we are.” Any minute now, she’ll burst into tears; only without the water, presumably. “I told you, it’s just a very few of us, the ones who cling to the old ways. And we want to stop that. It’s why we want to bring them home, re-educate them, make them understand that it’s wrong. That’s why we need your help, don’t you see that? You won’t just be helping us, you’ll be saving the lives of your people as well. Because if we can bring home the one who is to come, the leader of the stick-in-the-mud traditionalists, it’ll be a message to all. the rest of them that there is another way and it can work—”

  “No.” Chris had tried to keep the fear out of his voice, but it would insist on showing itself. If they got inside his head and saw what he knew, about Jill being the one they were looking for... the demon woman had to be lying, because he knew the one-who-is-to-come was Jill, just as he knew she couldn’t be the leader of the killing-people-is-OK faction. What the hell was he thinking about, even listening to this creature? “No, sorry, can’t be done. Wish I could help but I’ve got this morbid fear of needles, daren’t even have flu jabs, that’s why I never go away on holiday, scared stiff of the inoculations. Besides, you’re completely wrong, I have no idea who this person is you’re looking for, I can promise you that. And drilling holes in my head isn’t going to change that, so you’d better forget all about it, all right? And now I think I’d like to wake up, please.”

  He said, hopefully; but nothing happened. The demon woman hadn’t moved, she wasn’t crouching to pounce or anything, but she didn’t need to. It wasn’t as though he could jump out of a window and run for it, not in a place where windows weren’t even real. Might as well try and walk home from the Moon.

  She was looking at him very keenly. “Are you being completely honest with us?” she said.

  It’s relatively easy to pass off fear as anger. “You’re doing it again,” Chris shouted. “You’re calling me a liar.”

  She shrugged apologetically. “Well, yes,” she said.

  “Tough. What’re you going to do about it?”

  Now she looked really, really sad. “We could try appealing to your better nature.”

  “Haven’t got one. Now for crying out loud, someone wake me up!”

  She shook her head. “We can’t do that. We can put you to sleep, but not the other way round. It’s like you can jump off a cliff, but you can’t fly back up again.” She paused, then added quietly, “You could wake up if you really wanted to.”

  “No, I—”

  “If you really don’t believe us, you’d wake up,” she went on. “We think you’re protecting someone—at least, that’s how you see it, you think she needs to be protected from us, but it’s not like that, honest. You know you can trust us, that’s why you can’t make yourself wake up; it’s a basic defence mechanism, to defend humans from the Fey, but it only works if you know you’re really in danger. And you’re not. Are you?”

  Chris closed his eyes, but it didn’t make any difference; he could see just as well with them shut. “All right,” he said. “Prove you’re the nice guys. Prove it by letting me go.”

  A smile. “We can’t. Haven’t you been listening? We can’t wake you up, you’ve got to do it yourself.”

  Was it his imagination, or had she come closer? He hadn’t seen her move, but she was bigger, somehow, filling more of his field of view.

 
; “Is it the drilling a hole that’s bothering you?” she said. “Because there’s another way of doing it.” She drew the tip of her pink tongue across her top lip. “It takes longer, but it doesn’t hurt Quite the reverse, actually. I’d have suggested it earlier, but I didn’t want you getting the wrong idea about us.”

  Definitely closer; and something about the light was having a soft-filter effect. It wasn’t InstaGlamour cream that Angela had been using, he realised; it was just something these creatures could do, at will, like wiggling their ears. Chris turned his head and looked away, but that didn’t make any difference, either; she was there, just as close or closer, her lips slightly parted, just like in the films. “Just one little kiss,” she was murmuring, “now that’s not going to kill you, is it?”

  Try to think of something else. Work; think about filling out travel-expenses claims. Think about stock numbers, returns vouchers, VAT invoices, green slips and yellow slips and blue slips and there’s many a slip between cup and—

  “It works both ways,” she was saying. “We can see inside your head and you can see inside ours, and then you’ll know we’re telling the truth. We wouldn’t say that if we were lying, would we? After all, isn’t that what a kiss should be all about: a meeting of minds, a melding of souls?”

  And coffee breath, and spit, and teeth banging together. “I really do want to wake up now,” he whispered, as her mouth opened and came towards him like the ramp of the Cross-Channel ferry—

  There was a hummingbird; and the beating of its wings made a whirring noise, a whirring sort of hammering noise, like the sound of an alarm going off. But that was no good, he told himself, because I’m not in the bedroom, I’m asleep on the sofa, so there’s no alarm to save me, so it must just be the beating of my heart, or something equally useless. He felt his own mouth relax, and start to pucker—

  “Ow!” he squealed. “What did you do that for?”

  Chris’s eyes opened. His cheek was stinging. Karen was standing over him, white with rage.

  “You hit me,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, and hit him again, this time with a bit more wrist to it.

  “For God’s sake,” he protested, jumping up and shrinking away. “What the hell are you hitting me for?”

  “You were talking in your sleep.” Her voice was low and quiet, the sound of concentrated fury. “And making little sighing noises. And puckering up. And—”

  This time he managed to grab a cushion to use as a shield. “Was I?” he said. “I don’t—”

  “Yes, you bloody well do,” Karen barked at him.” I saw you, you bastard. Oh, and while we’re on the subject.” She raised her hand, taking careful aim, and he tightened his grip on the corner of the cushion. “Just who exactly is Angela?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was one of those meltdown moments. Karen was scowling furiously; their relationship was in the crusher, waiting for the big steel ram to drop; unless Chris found exactly the right form of words, delivered in precisely the right tone of voice, it’d all be over apart from arguing about whose aunt had given them the round white formica-topped table in the kitchen. He blinked, took a deep breath, and noticed something. “Are those new earrings?” he said.

  At least he had the satisfaction of stopping her dead in her tracks. “What?”

  “Those earrings,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you wearing them before.”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out; it was as though someone had pressed the mute button, followed by pause.

  “They’re nice,” Chris said. “I like them.”

  Three, maybe four seconds before she answered. “I got them in Debenhams,” she said.

  It was the way she said it. A hundred and eighty degrees from her previous tone. Defensive. Which was all to the good, in the short-term tactical sense, but that was no longer the most important issue. He needed to know—

  “Recently?” he asked.

  “About three weeks ago,” Karen replied; then she rallied (but it was more desperation than aggression) and repeated, “Who’s Angela?”

  “Oh, her,” he replied, with a sad grimace. “Girl at work. She got killed.”

  “Killed?”

  Chris nodded. “Rather a nasty accident, apparently. I was having a nightmare about it, actually, don’t know why. Freud would know.”

  “You never told me—”

  His chance for a big, nasty smile. “Well, you’re never here to tell, are you? Oh, I know,” he went on, pushing his luck like a bobsleigh crew trying for a fast launch, “you’re so busy at work these days, it’s all very important and you’ve got your career to think about. And I understand, I do really. It’s just ...” He couldn’t think of anything suitably sensitive to say, so he sensibly left it at three wistfully trailing dots.

  “It’s just while we’ve got this big promotion on,” she said, double-defensive—nice to see someone else fighting a losing battle on two fronts for a change, Chris thought smugly. I’d have done it better, but I’ve had so much more practice. “As soon as it’s finished, I promise, we’ll have loads more time—”

  “Yes, well.” A turn of phrase and tone of voice cribbed directly from Karen, but she didn’t seem to have noticed. She was more concerned with trying to claw her hair unobtrusively over her ears, to hide the earrings. Which reminded him; he had more important things on his mind than point-scoring. “Kingfishers, aren’t they?”

  “What?”

  Chris smiled. “Your earrings.”

  “What? Oh, yes, right. I bought them to go with the blue top I got in Monsoon, but they’re not quite right, which is why I haven’t worn them before. Still, if you like them—”

  Liar, he thought, and had to make an effort not to grin. Not kingfishers. Similar, but not. “Very much,” he said. “They remind me of something, but I can’t quite remember—”

  “God, is that the time? Got to go.” Karen leaned forward, darted a peck at him, and fled, slamming the front door behind her. Chris sat down, his chin in his hands, and thought; just when I was sure it couldn’t get any weirder.

  Because, yes, now he came to think of it, the girl in the dream, the nice demon who’d tried to kiss him, had been Angela, in a sort of a way. And Karen’s earrings hadn’t been kingfishers. They’d been hummingbirds.

  First things first. Chris phoned the office, explained that he was dying of cholera, foot and mouth disease and bubonic plague, and therefore wouldn’t be able to make his rounds today, so could someone please ring round and reschedule. How long was he planning on being dead for, they asked. Permanently, he replied; but he’d undoubtedly be reincarnated as a sales rep either tomorrow or the day after, so he’d be able to catch up early next week...

  Next. He made himself a cup of ultra-strong black coffee, sat down in the armchair, and tried to think.

  He thought: the one who is to come. Annoying phrase, needlessly mystical; but he was going to have to deal with it sooner or later, if he didn’t want this shambles to continue indefinitely.

  He thought about Jill; and yes, she’d have done quite well, because she did feed off other people’s emotions, she’d done it as long as he’d known her. Or Angela: assigned to him for no genuinely good reason, and the fuss had only started when she came on the scene; and how about the way she’d transformed herself from silent, miserable adolescent to bouncy charm-dispenser, thereby stirring up a whole shopping-trolley of emotions right across the Midlands?

  Jill had even admitted it—

  Just suppose, Chris said to himself, that they’re both lying. Just suppose, for instance, that it was the real Angela, not a demonically crafted replica, who’d lured him to the Ettingate Retail Park, in her own personal Suzuki jeep, in whose seat belt the marks of his fingernails were still visible shortly thereafter? Which was more or less what the nice demon had confessed, half an hour ago in this very room. In which case, she was one of the demons hunting the one who is to come; but were they the baddies, as SatNav h
ad told him, or what they themselves claimed to be, the enlightened liberal reformed tendency?

  And who’d suborned Honest John to flush him down the toilet?

  Jill as an undercover one-who-is-to-come hunter made a degree of sense, too. What better way to do her job than to infiltrate the humans’ demon-hunting agency at the highest level? But the evidence for her being a demon at all turned on her emotional-vampire status; which surely argued that she was a dissident, rather than a fundamentalist (if he believed SatNav’s version rather than the demons’ own).

  Weymouth, now; quite possibly his closest shave yet, though there wasn’t a lot in it. He’d assumed, of course, that the demon he’d seen there had been disguised as Karen, the same way the Ettingate attacker had been disguised as Angela. That, however, wasn’t a rock-solid analogy any more, because if the Ettingate Angela had been the real thing, then what reason did he have to believe that Weymouth Karen was a replica; or that demons could actually do the shape-shifting thing at all—?

  Oh, come on, Chris thought. They can’t all be demons, can they?

  Don’t answer that, he thought. Instead, let’s go back to the time between Ettingate and Honest John’s. At Ettingate he’d told the demon that he hadn’t a clue about the one who is to come, and she’d believed him. Fine. There, logic demanded, the matter should’ve rested. So why, shortly afterwards, should demonkind have made another attempt to snatch him, presumably to ask him the same question all over again?

  Chris made a genuine effort to think about that one, but the thought of Honest John’s attempt to pitch him down the toilet kept diverting him onto the subject of hummingbirds, which was somewhere he simply didn’t have the energy to go. He was just starting to feel the onset of a really nasty caffeine migraine when a flash of light dazzled his mind’s eye, and—

  Gandhi; now he came to think of it, blindingly obvious. Non-violent resistance, a turning of the back on the vicious cycle of bloodshed and reprisal; the martyr hounded and persecuted for the noble cause; Gandhi was just the Book’s infuriatingly allusive way of drawing his attention to the one who is to come. Well, fine. Glad to have got that out of the way, but really no further forward at all, and about par for the course as far as the Book’s usefulness was concerned.