Barking

by Tom Holt

  Duncan nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So I’m the traitor. What am I supposed to be betraying? Your boss knows,’ he added quickly, before Sally could speak. ‘That Caroline, she knows but she wouldn’t tell me. So why don’t you—?’

  He hesitated. Sally was smiling, but he was prepared to bet she wasn’t aware she was doing it. Habit of hers, one he remembered; small recompense for the heartbreak and misery, but if he hadn’t been married to her, he wouldn’t have known about the habit, and a tiny little light bulb wouldn’t have started to glow in his head. Looked at from that perspective, it’d been a small price to pay.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me what it is?’ he went on. ‘And then at least I’ll know if I’ve actually done something to deserve all this. Not that it matters—’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’ A goodness-is-that-the-time look flickered across Sally’s face. ‘What matters is delivering you, dead or alive. I know it’s the most appalling cliché, but there’s a hard way and an easy way. Your choice. Five seconds.’

  He had to admit, she did melodrama really rather well. Not many people could’ve said that without making him want to snigger, because it was something people only said in movies, and he didn’t watch that kind of movie. But she said it with a kind of eyes-wide-open sincerity that almost made it sound like a genuine choice. Bloody hell, they were trying to kill him . . . A surge of irritation swept through him, because it was really nasty of her to put him in a situation where someone could come out with a bloody stupid line like that and expect to be taken seriously. He reached behind him, grabbed hold of the plain wooden chair provided for the Crosswoods receptionist and swung it over his head, bringing it down as hard as he could on the edge of the desk. It flew apart, leaving him holding one splintered leg, ending in a nice sharp point where it had split along the grain. One improvised wooden stake; and in the other hand, the wrist-numbing weight of Megarry and Wade.

  ‘I’ve chosen,’ Duncan said.

  But Sally just sighed. ‘You and your male ego,’ she said. ‘You really think you can fight your way out. With a chair leg.’

  He shrugged. ‘You talk like a bad film, I think like one. I guess we’re all victims of American popular culture.’ (As he said it, a strange but pleasing thought occurred to him: she may be a vampire and trying to kill me, but I’m not afraid of her any more. When we were married, she scared me stiff. I was always afraid I’d do something wrong and she wouldn’t love me any more.) ‘Well, go on, then,’ he said wearily. ‘If you’re going to try and kill me, go ahead. If not, I’m leaving. No offence, but I’ve had just about enough of you to last me.’

  ‘Oh for crying out loud,’ she said, and flew at him. Literally: both feet off the floor, arms spread like wings, she lifted into the air, hovered for a moment, then swooped like a diver, straight at his face.

  There are some things you can never really prepare yourself for, and one of them is seeing your ex-wife zoom at you through the air like a huge black seagull. Duncan ducked just in time, dropping the chair leg and the book as he instinctively shielded his face with his hands. As she shot by overhead, he felt the hem of her sort-of-cape-thing flick the corner of his eye, and noticed that she was wearing perfume. That, and make-up too. Being undead had clearly helped her express her long-repressed feminine side.

  Sally banked a foot or so from the wall and came by for another pass, sending Duncan scuttling under the front desk. He banged both his head and his knee but neither of them hurt. She screeched - it was the cry of a pterodactyl or a Nazgul or a huge killer bat, but it was also unmistakably her, the same tone of voice she’d always used for telling him he had to grow up and start taking this relationship seriously (which generally meant it was his turn to Hoover the lounge) - and came down for another pass, grabbing the desk with both hands, lifting it off the floor and hurling it across the room. Well, he thought, she always did throw things when she was in a strop.

  All in all, it was an inopportune moment for a sudden blinding insight. But intuition is a bit like your mother, it always tends to call when you’re in the middle of something else. So absolute was the revelation that he clean forgot about the fight, his history with his opponent and the very real prospect of being killed. Not that they weren’t very real issues, but this was simply much more important. He stood up, and said, ‘Wait a second.’

  Sally braked in mid-air; it must have been his tone of voice. ‘What?’ she said, hovering, her cape barely fluttering, so that she looked like a five-foot-five killer hummingbird.

  ‘I know what the thing is,’ he said, less than brilliantly. ‘The thing,’ he repeated. ‘What I’m supposed to betray to you.’

  She smiled. She’d always had a nice smile. ‘No, you don’t,’ she said. ‘You just told me you don’t.’

  ‘Ah, but I’ve figured it out.’ Didn’t he ever feel pleased with himself. The way you do. ‘I know why it had to be me, and why I was able to stand up to Luke instead of backing down with my tail between my legs—’

  ‘You know, I have trouble visualising you with a tail,’ she said. ‘Especially between your—’

  ‘And that’s what your lot want from me,’ he said, as much to himself as her. ‘You reckon you’ll be able to use it, like a command code or something; make us do what you want, use us—’ He frowned: not a nice idea, werewolves at the beck and call of vampires, a ferocious and expendable workforce. And they wouldn’t be rounding up sheep or carrying newspapers home in their mouths. It’d be ‘Good boy, kill’ - ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ he said defiantly. ‘Your lot want it - the vampires, I mean. And your other lot, too: Bowden Allshapes and Wesley Loop and all those nutters. You want to be able to say “Heel” and we’ll all do exactly what you tell us to—’

  ‘Not bad.’ Sally nodded approvingly. ‘That’s half of it, anyway. It’s all right, we don’t need you to be able to figure out the other half. In fact, it’d fuck up everything if you did. Right,’ she said briskly, ‘we can get on now. You see, there’d be no earthly point killing you if you didn’t know the secret.’

  Oh, Duncan thought. Sod it. Should’ve kept my face shut. Except it wouldn’t have made any difference. There was no way out of there except over her undead body.

  She took her time: careful, meticulous, hallmark of a good litigation lawyer. She drew herself up in the air, studying him like a golfer considering a long putt, and he discovered that he was suddenly too scared to move. Fine wolf you turned out to be, he told himself, and waited for the moment.

  Which didn’t come. She was all ready to swoop when another black-caped figure flew at her, catching her round the neck and pulling her down to the floor. Catfight, he thought; at least, change that C to a B and you’d be nearer the mark. It was that nice-looking Veronica. She must’ve come round out of her Megarry and Wade-induced slumber, and maybe she assumed it was Sally who’d clobbered her, or maybe they just didn’t like each other much. In any event, they were fighting it out in fine style, though it was all happening too fast for Duncan to catch the finer points. It was mostly wrestling, with some karate, kick-boxing and biting thrown in. A bit like having an episode of Xena Warrior Princess filmed in your living room, and the production people had forgotten to tell you about it in advance.

  Duncan was ashamed to admit it, but he knew quite a few people who’d have paid money to watch. Not, however, his cup of tea. As quietly and unobtrusively as he could manage, he started to creep on all fours towards the door.

  For a while, he thought he was going to make it. He paused three times and glanced up, and they seemed to be getting on just fine without him. The main problem appeared to be that no matter how hard they bit each other, they couldn’t break the skin; it didn’t stop them trying, though, and no matter what your views might be on violence in the workplace, you had to admire their perseverance and dedication. But, when he was no more than seven feet from the door and wondering whether a quick lunge might carry him through, he heard a noise like someone gargling custard, followed by
a heavy thump. He wanted to ignore it and make his dash anyway, but somehow he couldn’t. He looked over his shoulder.

  Nice-looking Veronica was hanging in the air as though she’d got her cape caught up on an invisible coat hook. Beneath her on the floor, Sally lay in a heap, like some bulk commodity tipped off the back of a dumper truck. He stared at her for a moment, wondering if she was—

  ‘It’s all right.’ Veronica’s voice sounded unbearably weary. ‘She’ll be OK.’ She looked at him, and added: ‘You still care, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Well, no, actually,’ he added. ‘Not like that. What’ve you done to her?’

  ‘Throttled her till she blacked out.’ Long sigh, as of someone completely fed up. ‘She’ll have a hell of a sore throat for a day or two, and I doubt I’ll hear the last of it for a long time. But never mind. Going somewhere?’

  Duncan nodded. ‘New Mexico,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ Veronica sounded disappointed, which was—Although she wasn’t nearly so nice-looking now. Her hair was tangled like a bramble patch and there was spit dribbling down her chin. ‘Why? Got relatives there or something?’

  ‘No. That’s the point,’ Duncan said. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have told you,’ he added, wondering why he had.

  She shrugged. ‘To be honest with you, I’m feeling too tired to care. Properly speaking, I ought to stop you, but—’ Slowly, like a drifting leaf, she let herself glide gently to the floor. ‘If you want to go, go. I’ll tell the others that we fought and you won. Which is probably what’d happen, seeing how knackered I feel. Well, go on, then.’

  Duncan didn’t move; which was bloody odd, he had to admit. He blamed it all on curiosity, but that was only a very small part of it. ‘What was all that about?’ he said.

  ‘What? Oh, you mean—’ She grinned. ‘I was saving your life,’ she said. ‘I’d rather assumed you’d figured that out for yourself, which was why I hadn’t mentioned it.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Thanks,’ he added.

  ‘Thanks,’ she echoed. ‘Well, that makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it? Sorry,’ she added. ‘Uncalled for. After all, I didn’t rush to your rescue out of a high-minded regard for the value of canine life.’

  (Or because I like you, she didn’t add.)

  ‘It’s because your lot needs me. Because of the secret, right?’

  Veronica nodded. ‘I overheard a bit of your conversation,’ she said. ‘Dreadful manners, but I was too woozy to move. Was it you who bashed me, by the way? I remember something whirling towards me, but that’s about it.’

  Duncan nodded guiltily. ‘I thought you were Sally,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, fine. Anyway, I heard what you two were saying about Bowden Allshapes, and Sally not really being on our side all along. Actually, we had our suspicions, but it seemed so hard to believe: one of us, working for the enemy. The other enemy, of course, not your lot.’ She sighed. ‘It’s all a bit confusing, if you ask me. Still, she as good as admitted that she wanted to hand you over to the zombie people. It had to be that, or why was she trying to kill you? Dead, you’d be no earthly use to us, but of course it’s as broad as it’s long to them.’ She smiled. ‘Once I’d worked that out, I didn’t really have any option. Hence the unseemly display of energy. That cow,’ she added, frowning, ‘has broken two of my fingernails. I’ve a good mind to do something spiteful and vindictive in return, like giving her a purple rinse while she’s still out cold. Everybody’d assume she’d done it herself, and it could be days before she found out. Happy thought,’ she said, ‘but I suppose I’d better not. I’ve got to work with her, after all.’

  That one hit Duncan like a slap across the face. ‘What, after you’ve found out - well, that she’s a mole for Bowden Allshapes and she was going to—’

  Veronica shook her head. ‘It’s not like we’ve got any choice,’ she said. ‘Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other. Even if she wasn’t a partner, even if she was just, you know, staff, we could-n’t just fire her. She’s one of us. Trouble is, not all of us are nice.’ She paused for a moment, then clicked her tongue. ‘No, I imagine Caroline’ll give her a thorough talking-to - and don’t pull faces, you’ve never heard Caroline when she really gets going. Given the choice between an earful from our senior partner and being buried at a crossroads with a stake through my heart, at the very least I’d have to give it some serious thought. After that, I guess we’ll just have to keep a very close eye on her, for ever and ever. Tiresome, but that’s how it is. Besides,’ she added, ‘she’s the only one who knows how to make broadband work. That’s a giggle, by the way, it really is; for us, I mean, being in on the secret. I mean, imagine what it’s like calling the twenty-four-hour helpline and knowing that the voice at the other end is an unnaturally resurrected corpse, instead of just suspecting—’

  Duncan resisted the urge to frown. Was she flirting with him? He wished he knew a bit more about the subject, but he’d had precious little experience. Sally hadn’t flirted, in the same way fish don’t climb mountains. But if she was, then why? Not because she liked him, so it had to be some dark and devious tactic, part of all this stuff he was supposed to be running away from. It occurred to him that he hadn’t done much running away lately, even though it should’ve been the Christmas fairy perched on the very top of his agenda.

  ‘I’ll go now,’ he said. He didn’t move, though.

  ‘Oh.’ Veronica looked at him. ‘You sure? Wouldn’t you be better off staying here? What I mean is, out there you’ve got the werewolves, who were trying to kill you, and the zombies, ditto.’ She looked away. ‘Whereas we’ve got a vested interest in keeping you alive.’

  ‘Have you?’

  She nodded. ‘You were saying. After she started throwing the furniture about, but before she went in for the kill. You’d figured it out. The secret.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He’d forgotten; in fact, he had to ransack his mind for the residues of that sudden flash of enlightenment. Fortunately, they were still there. ‘It’s just a theory,’ he said. ‘Nothing concrete. I mean, it’s not really something I could trade with.’

  She shrugged; a bit too couldn’t-care-less-one-way-or-another to be entirely convincing. Did vampires get to meet a lot of men, he wondered. If werewolves were anything to go by, grim comradely celibacy was the general rule. Stop thinking about all that stuff, he ordered himself. ‘You may as well give it a go,’ she said. ‘Unless you’ve got scruples about betraying your pack, even though they did turn really nasty on you.’

  His turn to look away. ‘Should I have?’

  ‘God, no. I mean,’ she went on quickly, ‘by the looks of it they’re convinced that you’ve already double-crossed them, and I doubt there’s anything you could say that’d change their minds. So, in that case, you’ve got nothing to lose by it, have you?’

  He pulled a face. ‘I can’t stay here for ever,’ he said. ‘Can I?’

  Veronica looked thoughtful, as though it hadn’t been a rhetorical question. ‘We can always use another probate lawyer,’ she said. ‘But I guess it might be awkward, you working in the same building as Sally. I don’t think Caroline’d go for it, no. Pity, though. It’d have been - well, interesting. I mean, they’re a great bunch of girls and we get along pretty well most of the time, but—’ She shook her head. ‘No, it wouldn’t work. Forget I suggested it.’

  ‘Right. In that case—’

  ‘But maybe you should stay here for now,’ she said, rather quickly. ‘Regroup. Figure out your next move. We’ll help you.’

  Odd effect those three words had. Four, if you counted the ellision. ‘Would you?’

  ‘I will, yes.’

  Strange thing to say, Duncan thought. Still, it had to be better than going out into the werewolf-and-zombie-filled night. He didn’t know a lot about the persistence levels of zombies, but he knew Luke and the gang. Not quitters; and they must have a pretty good idea of where he’d ended up, after that spectacular rescue. At the very least, it’d be sensible t
o stay out of their way till moonset and sunrise.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘In that case—’ Suddenly he grinned. ‘You know,’ he went on, ‘there’s something I’ve always wanted to say and I never thought I’d ever have the chance, but this situation is absolutely tailor-made for it. May I?’

  Veronica gave him a puzzled look. ‘Sure.’

  ‘You won’t sigh or click your tongue or anything?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Splendid.’ He stood up, smiled, and took a deep breath. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘take me to your leader.’

  She blinked. Then she sighed and clicked her tongue. ‘That’s it, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All done now?’

  ‘Yes.’ He scowled at her. ‘You promised you wouldn’t—’

  ‘Caroline’s office is this way,’ she said.

  Stairs, landings, corridors. They arrived at a door. She knocked, then went in without waiting for an answer.

  There are strict and universal rules about the expression of status by means of office furniture, even when the furniture in question is a coffin. Sally, he remembered, had had light oak with brass handles. Caroline the senior partner, by contrast, had exquisitely figured burr walnut with silver handles, resting on a pair of trestles of turned rosewood. The effect was slightly spoilt by the fact that, when Caroline sat up, she had a grey mud pack on her face and curlers in her hair.

  ‘Sorry to barge in,’ Veronica said, fooling nobody. ‘We’d like a quick word.’

  Her choice of pronouns wasn’t wasted on Caroline. When she peeled the slices of cucumber off her eyes, there was a quizzical look in them. ‘He’s still here, then,’ she said.