In Your Dreams (23 page)

She ordered
behili palov
for two with
kalinji
bread and a pot of Tashkent black tea, and while they were waiting for it to arrive, she brought Paul up to date with her life story. Most of it, apparently, seemed to be about boring jobs and useless boyfriends; it surprised Paul that someone who had so much going for her should have had such a rotten time. Surely, if you were good-looking and bright and fun to be with, shouldn't the world do exactly what you wanted it to, like a well-trained dog? That had always been an article of faith, as far as he was concerned; his life had been a rolling sequence of disasters because he was an unsatisfactory mess, and if only he'd been better-looking/smarter/ cooler/more tanned/better dressed, things would have been entirely different. He hadn't objected to the system particularly, once he'd figured out how it seemed to work. On the contrary, knowing he'd never really stood a chance had been a comfort, an excuse for not trying. But if there was no such system, no such rules, things suddenly became alarmingly arbitrary; and by implication, if he hadn't managed to get the things he wanted, it was somehow
his fault
, rather than the responsibility of his parents and remoter ancestors, for landing him with a set of genes and a station in life that meant there was no point in bothering to aspire— While these fraught issues were whizzing through his mind in a sort of frantic Brownian motion, he kept nodding and making little sympathetic noises as Melze embarked on an account of yet another disaster. Apparently he was doing the right thing, because as she talked, she was looking at him with a warm, thoughtful glow in her eyes, like a predatory angel.

‘And basically, that's it,' she said; and Paul, looking up with a mouthful of
behili palov
, concluded that the briefing was complete. ‘So,' she went on, ‘that's all my gory details. How about you?'

He shrugged and swallowed rice. ‘Oh, nothing to tell, really. I mean, like I told you, I've been here about nine months now and I suppose I'm sort of getting used to it. Split up with my girlfriend just before you arrived – she reckoned that she couldn't stand the sight of me any more, and I guess I can see her point. That's all, really.'

Melze pulled a face. ‘You'll have to do better than that,' she said. ‘Like, what are your plans for the future, where do you reckon you're going, all that sort of thing. And don't say you don't know, because I don't believe you. I know what you're like, always the quiet one with loads going on just below the surface. For instance, I don't believe you just sort of drifted into this magic thing by sheer fluke and then found out you had the gift or whatever you call it, straight out of the blue. Something like that, you must've known all along that you were different, special.'

The correct answer was, of course, ‘No.' It wasn't the answer that Paul gave. Instead, he found himself hinting, implying, suggesting; in fact, if the impression he was giving was anything to go by, he was a pretty enigmatic and fascinating piece of work.
Effective magic
, commented a tiny little voice somewhere in the back of his mind;
see, you can do it if you try
. He was telling her what she wanted to hear, though, and surely that was a good thing.

And then there came a moment when neither of them were talking. His hand was on the table, he wasn't sure how it had got there; and slowly, deliberately, she reached out her hand toward it. He saw it and looked at her; she was staring, no, gazing at him, and he was caught in her regard like a rabbit in headlight beams.

The pain shot up from his wrist into his elbow, from there to his shoulder. It was like various sorts of pain he'd actually experienced, and others he'd only imagined – toothache, crushing, slicing, burning, stinging, electrocution, tearing, stabbing. It punched the air out of his lungs and stopped his heart for a second, until a reflex cut in and made him pull his hand away. The pain stopped immediately, though the shock lingered. His hand and arm were numb for a couple of seconds, and then the pins and needles set in.

‘What's the matter?' Melze said, and her voice was slightly panicky. ‘Are you all right?'

‘I'm fine,' Paul snapped. ‘I don't— Sorry, I just got this pain in my hand, like a twinge or something.' Inside him, a little voice protested that if that had been a twinge, the First World War had been a slight difference of opinion. ‘Cramp,' he said. ‘That's all.'

‘Oh.' She laughed; it sounded like a stone falling down a well. ‘That's all right, then. I thought I'd – well, upset you, or something.'

It was only then that he realised she'd touched his hand.
Shit
, he thought;
what a way to react, how unbelievably romantic.
‘No, no, no, no, really,' he bleated, ‘like I said, it was just cramp, I get it sometimes. Really,' he added, in case there was any lingering ambiguity.

‘That's awful,' she said sympathetically. ‘Sounds like one of those repetitive strain things. You should see a doctor.'

He did the martyr's can't-be-bothered shrug. ‘It's not so bad,' he said.

‘It looked pretty nasty,' Melze replied, looking slightly sideways at him. ‘If it
is
repetitive strain whatsit, you can have physiotherapy, they give you this sort of brace to wear. My aunt had it, and they cleared it up in no time.'

‘Ah,' Paul said. ‘I'll have to give that a try, then.' He was painfully aware that he was blushing like a beetroot. ‘I'm really sorry if I startled you,' he said.

‘That's all right.' She made a show of looking at her watch. ‘Damn, it's ten to two, we'd better be getting back.' She looked up, and at once the waiter materialised, like a Romulan cruiser decloaking, and handed her the bill. She produced a card, apparently out of thin air, and he went away. ‘Well,' she went on, ‘thanks ever so much for showing me the ropes this morning.'

‘My pleasure,' he said. ‘Thanks for lunch.'

Melze nodded. ‘We must come here again,' she said. The waiter came back with her card and the receipt for her to sign, and a moment or so later they were outside on the pavement. Paul's legs still felt distinctly wobbly, but he ignored them.

He came with her as far as the door of the cashier's office, then muttered something about some bits and pieces he had to see to, and turned away. ‘See you later,' she called after him. He stopped, but didn't look round. ‘You're coming with me to the Bank, remember.'

‘Oh, right. See you, then.'

He'd forgotten about that little chore. Not something to look forward to; not terribly romantic. Even he couldn't visualise himself strolling hand in hand with her through the featureless darkness of the Kingdom of the Dead. Still—

Paul realised that he'd stopped, for some reason he couldn't fathom, outside the door of the closed-file store. It was a spooky sort of place at the best of times, and ever since the weird episode with the bicycle, he'd steered well clear of it. Now, however, he felt an odd urge to push the door open and go in. He fought it down, but as he walked away he was aware of a feeling both familiar and unexpected: guilt, as though he'd just turned his back on a friend in need.

Having nowhere else to go, he went back to his office. The door was open. Countess Judy was sitting at the desk, in Sophie's old chair.

‘There you are,' she said, frowning a little.

‘Sorry,' Paul said automatically. ‘Um, have you been waiting—?'

A tiny head gesture on her part indicated that it wasn't important. ‘Presumably you've been briefing Ms Horrocks about running the cashier's office.'

He nodded. ‘That's all right, isn't it?' he added. ‘You said—'

‘Perfectly all right,' she replied. ‘Thank you. However, if you have a moment—'

Bugger
, Paul thought. ‘It's not dragons, is it?' he said quickly. ‘Because I think I've done something to my hand, and—'

She shook her head. ‘Not dragons,' she replied, with a faint smirk. ‘Nothing like that. Christine needs someone to help her move a filing cabinet, that's all.'

‘Ah.' It was a mark of how jangled Paul's brain had become that it took him a moment to remember who Christine was: Mr Tanner's secretary, efficient woman, talked a lot. ‘No problem,' he said, ‘I'll get on it right away.'

‘Splendid.' Countess Judy stood up. ‘And when you've done that, you might care to spend a few minutes reviewing the chapter in the procedures manual about baiting chimeras. A client faxed us this morning asking for advice on how to deal with them. And don't forget,' she added, ‘about the banking.'

No, mum
, Paul thought, and set off for Christine's room.

‘Mind the paint,' Christine said for the seventh time. Paul nodded, too exhausted to apologise. The cabinet was heavy, he wasn't used to hard physical labour, and the room was too damn small anyhow. ‘No, doesn't look like it's going to fit. Try it the way you had it the first time.'

He'd assumed it'd be easy, now that he could use magic; but it wasn't allowed. Apparently, the cabinet had been festooned with filing charms, so that all you had to do was open a drawer at random and drop in a piece of paper, and when you looked for it next, it'd be in the right folder, in alphabetical order, neatly tagged to the rest of the bundle. The charms didn't work, of course; no force on earth, natural or supernatural, can keep stored paperwork from reverting to a state of chaos. But once they'd been applied they couldn't be removed, and they didn't mix well and play nicely with any other forms of magic. Using telekinesis on a charmed cabinet would assuredly have all sorts of bloodcurdling side effects. Hence the need for boring old human muscle.

‘That'll have to do,' Christine said eventually. ‘Right, thanks, you'd better get on and do the banking. Don't want Mr Tanner getting all upset, do we?'

Too bloody right we don't
, Paul thought, and he scampered down the stairs to the cashier's office.

While he'd been playing with office furniture, Melze had sorted out the overcrowded in-tray, done all the reconciliations, fed all the totals into the computer, tidied the windowsill and done something subtle but effective with her hair. Paul didn't understand that sort of thing, but the net result made him forget what he was going to say and walk into the edge of the desk.

‘Is it that time already?' Melze looked at him, and he saw a shadow of apprehension in her eyes. ‘It probably sounds a bit feeble, but I'm not looking forward to this.'

Paul grinned. ‘Me neither. But it's not nearly as scary as it looks. Just – well, do as I do, and don't look round. Oh, and don't talk to anybody except Mr Dao, he's the cashier; and whatever you do, don't let them get you a cup of tea. That's really important. Okay?'

She nodded. ‘I think so,' she said.

‘Ready?'

‘As I'll ever be.'

‘Fine.' Paul started flipping back bolts and turning keys. ‘You'll soon get the hang of it,' he said in a hollow voice. ‘All right, then, on three. One, two—'

He took a long, deep breath, checked his pocket to make sure that the baseball cap was there, and stepped through the door. On the other side was that same total absence of light and colour that he remembered so clearly – odd, that the essence of nothing could be etched so vividly into his mind. This time, though, it was perceptibly colder. He could feel pain in his knuckles and toe joints, and a harsh pressure on either side of his head. He didn't dare call out, ‘This way' or ‘Keep up', let alone turn round to see if Melze was there. That made him feel bad, because surely it was his duty to protect her. But, he rationalised, it wouldn't do either of them any good if he broke the rules and got trapped in here for ever.

At least the dead seemed glad to see him. Distant cousins and venerable friends of the family who'd never had a civil word for him while he was alive came bustling up through the darkness to greet him. Ignoring them was easy enough, since he'd never had anything to say to them while they'd been alive. After a while they gave up and drifted away. He didn't like to think what Melze was going through; for all he knew, she'd lost people she genuinely cared for, which would make ignoring them very hard indeed.

Today's blood sacrifice was the usual: rabbit-out-of-a-hat. Paul had tried his best not to think about it all day, and that had only made it worse. He'd never actually tried doing the conjuring trick, since that would've involved admitting to himself that at some stage he was going to have to do this terrible thing. A substantial part of him was hoping that when he unfolded the baseball cap and felt inside it, there'd be nothing there; in which case, he hoped, he could just turn round and go back. But as soon as he thrust in his fingers, they connected with soft, sleek fur.
Bugger
, he thought. True, it wasn't the first time he'd killed something: he'd sat on a wyvern, so there was already blood on his hands, or on some part of his anatomy. Even so—

Paul got a grip on what felt revoltingly like a teddy bear's paw and heaved. Out came the rabbit, squealing and thrashing, and he discovered that he was holding it by one hind leg. Cursing himself, the rabbit and the world in general, he fumbled in his other pocket for the knife. It was there, but it had managed to get wedged underneath his bunch of keys, and the keys had poked their way through the pocket lining.
Not now
, he thought bitterly as he tugged,
please not now, this isn't a good time
. Then something whacked him hard on the nose.

He reared back, but not far enough; the rabbit's free hind leg socked him again, this time scrabbling across his top lip. His hands automatically let go, and the rabbit arched its back and kicked furiously in mid-air before landing on all fours and scooting away out of sight. He opened his mouth to swear and thought better of it. Then he recognised a coppery taste in his mouth. Blood. Nosebleed.