May Contain Traces of Magic (31 page)

‘Looks like it, doesn't it? Anyway,' Chris went on, ‘I thought you'd better know about it, so I called you. Oh, and I haven't got your shirt with me, it's at home. Drop by any evening after seven-thirty and pick it up.'

Derek thought for a minute, then said, ‘So why are they still after you? I thought the whole point was that they believed you knew something and then realised you didn't. Why go through the whole performance all over again?'

‘That,' Chris replied with feeling, ‘is a fucking good question. Just as well you're here to figure out the answer. It's what I pay my taxes for, after all.'

Derek nodded. ‘I'll pass it on to Colonel Ettin-Smith. She's taken charge of this case, you being a personal friend, so—'

‘No,' Chris said, surprising himself with the firmness of his voice, ‘don't do that. You think about it yourself. I have faith in you. You're clever. You have excellent taste in shirts. You think about it, and when you've thought, you call me. Right?'

‘I can't do that,' Derek replied indignantly. ‘That'd be a direct breach of the chain of command, it'd be—'

Chris took the sunglasses from his pocket and held them out. ‘You might want,' he said quietly, ‘to borrow these.'

For a moment, Derek stared at him as though he'd just sprouted feathers. Then he said ‘Oh,' in a tiny little voice, and took the glasses.

‘You can give them back when you come round for the shirt.'

‘Right,' Derek said. ‘Yes. Thanks.' He stared at the glasses in his hand, then put them in an inside pocket. ‘How did you—?'

‘Figure it out?' Chris tried to look casual. ‘Oh, Jill and Karen used to be best friends at school. Karen,' he repeated. ‘My wife. Only she's not.'

To fill in the time, Chris did his usual rounds. Sold loads of stuff, hardly aware of what he was doing: BB27Ks, and enough dried water to fill the Sea of Tranquillity.

(‘Excuse me asking,' he couldn't help saying, though, ‘but have you got any idea what they do with it?'

‘Funny,' the girl replied. ‘I was going to ask you that.')

After the last call, he killed an hour in a service station Burger King, drawing diagrams on the back of an envelope. He even used three different-coloured pens. Then he drove to Jill's street and parked opposite the entrance to her block of flats.

She was an hour and ten minutes later than he'd thought she'd be. He saw her in his mirror, walking briskly up the street, carrier bag swinging from one hand, and he thought: I used to be in love with
that
. He could say it to himself quite easily, now that it was over. Even so, he was glad he'd lent the sunglasses to Derek. If he'd still had them, he wouldn't have been able to resist putting them on and looking at her, and he really didn't want to know what she'd look like through them.

She must've recognised the car. She altered course, crossed the street and came up to his door. He wound down the window and smiled at her.

‘Hi, Chris,' she said, sounding vaguely apprehensive. ‘Were you waiting for me?'

‘Mphm.'

‘Is anything the matter?'

‘Yes. You're not human. You're a demon.'

Jill frowned. ‘Come in and have a cup of tea,' she said. She'd always been tea rather than coffee, jacket potato rather than chips, salad rather than peas.

‘Thanks,' Chris said, and got out of the car to follow her.

‘How'd you find out?' she said, her back to him as she unlocked her door.

‘Part intuition,' he replied, ‘part deduction. What first started me thinking—'

‘Oh, stop trying to sound clever,' Jill said. ‘Somebody must've told you.'

‘No way,' he replied irritably. ‘I worked it out for myself. It was obvious, actually.'

‘Was it?'

‘Yes, as soon as Sa—as soon as someone told me about the nice demon; the one who wants peace, I mean.' He took a deep breath, and went on: ‘That's you, isn't it?'

For a moment Jill's face was completely blank. Then she nodded. ‘Quite right,' she said. ‘Now, how did you guess?'

Chris sighed, and sat down on the nearest chair. ‘Should've realised years ago, really,' he said. ‘Well, not actually while we were still at school, because I'd never heard of demons back then, and I wouldn't have believed in them if someone had told me. But later, thinking about what happened, that day in the girls' bogs—' He looked up at her and said, ‘I'm right, aren't I?'

She nodded again. ‘I think so,' she said. ‘Be more specific.'

‘You and Karen were in there when the demon attacked the other girl.' He paused, then went on. ‘I'm guessing you could see the demon, and Karen and the other girl couldn't; at any rate, you knew what was going on, and it really upset you. That's what made you decide there had to be another way.'

Jill was looking away, but she nodded once more.

‘Being a demon-hunter's the perfect cover, of course. You're heavily protected - I mean, no demon in its right mind's going to try and get at you of all people; you can keep track of everything that's going on, and if one of them does come after you, you can have it taken out straight away. They haven't got a clue where you are, but somehow they know you're connected to me - maybe they can smell you on me, I don't know—'

‘Good guess,' she interrupted quietly.

‘Whatever. Anyway, that's why they've been after me and why they think I know where you are. I think you should've told me, though.'

She shrugged. ‘Maybe I should.'

‘And that's why—' This was acutely embarrassing, but for once in his life Chris was prepared to endure the suffering. ‘That's why you - well, why we never got together. I mean, it wasn't all that unthinkable; we've always been good friends, really got on, same sense of humour, all that stuff you get in the magazine quizzes. But you knew it was out of the question because you're not . . .' Deep, deep breath. ‘Not human. Pretty bloody fundamental, really.'

‘Quite,' Jill said.

‘And then when I heard about how you were planning to do away with needing to kill people, how your lot feed off emotion—' It was all coming out so fluently now, like blood from a punctured vein. ‘Well, I suddenly realised. Two things, really. What I mean is, there's our sort of group of friends, ever since school; and you're the one everybody's always come to with their problems, or when they're really happy, any time they're really
emotional
, what do they do? They come to you and they talk about it, pour it all out in torrents, and you sit there looking all serious and sympathetic, nodding and saying, ‘That's so terrible' and ‘I know' and stuff. What you've really been doing all this time,' he said, with just a hint of anger, ‘is lapping it up, food and drink to you, literally. You live on it. And I think,' he went on, ‘that all the time we all thought you were there for us, the only person we could talk to who'd understand - really, I think you were stirring away like mad, making trouble and melodrama, keeping us all living soap-opera lives so we'd—' He shrugged. ‘Better than killing people, I guess. But it explains why sometimes when I see you, you're as thin as a rake, and then a week later you've put on pounds. And Karen and me—' Definitely a raw edge to his voice, and he didn't care. ‘You knew from the very start we weren't right for each other, we'd never ever be able to get along. But when she fancied me back in school, you egged her on, and then you led
me
on, and then gave me the brush-off just exactly timed so I'd turn to Karen on the rebound; and I suppose you've been, well, snacking off the both of us ever since.'

‘Hardly snacking,' Jill said quietly. ‘More a four-course banquet with wine and cheese to follow.'

‘Fine,' Chris snapped. ‘Glad to have been of service.'

‘You have been,' she said solemnly. ‘And not just to me. Not just to the human race, either,' she added. ‘If you've heard about what I've been trying to do, you must see that it's the only hope for my lot and yours as well. And meanwhile—' She shrugged. ‘A girl's gotta live.'

He looked at her; at the side of her head, since she was still facing away from him. ‘I guess,' he said heavily. ‘And it's all been in a good cause, and it's not like I
begrudge
you—' He covered his face with his hands and slowly massaged his closed eyelids with his fingertips; suddenly he felt overwhelmingly tired. ‘I can ask you if it was all just an act or whether you ever really liked me, or any of us, and you'll give me an answer and it'll sound really convincing. But I don't think I'll be able to believe it.'

‘Your choice,' she said; sad but reasonable voice, this hurts me more than it hurts you. ‘Now perhaps you can see why I never told anybody.'

‘Well, of course. You'd have blown your meal ticket.'

Chris hadn't meant it to come out as harshly as that, but since it had, he didn't really mind. Anger and disappointment: two very strong emotions, on a bed of wild rice.

Jill walked away from him until she was facing the window. She said: ‘Well, there you go. You're quite right. And smart too, the way you figured it out. What are you going to do now?'

For a long moment he didn't understand the question. ‘If you mean, am I going to tell anybody, of course not. They'd think I'd gone round the bend, for a start.'

‘Our little secret, then.'

‘I suppose so, yes. And I wouldn't tell anyone even if I thought they'd listen. I mean,' he added, and pushing the words out was like pulling his own teeth with pliers, ‘I don't want the nasty demons to find you, do I?'

She nodded. ‘Because it'd mean the end of civilisation as you know it.'

‘Partly that, yes.'

‘Well, fine. Very public-spirited. And I'm sorry.'

‘Sorry?' Chris echoed. One of those words that suddenly doesn't seem to mean anything.

‘Yes. Sorry. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Unfortunately the survival of both our species has had to take priority over your delicate bloody sensibilities. And while I think of it, Karen's too good for you, and you've always treated her like shit, and then you have the nerve to come whining to me about how you're not getting along when you should be waking up every morning thinking how lucky you are that you've got someone who'll put up with you. I know I couldn't have, even if I had been human. I'd have bitten your head off in the first three days.'

Even as he felt the shock, a part of Chris was thinking: hurt, anger, misery, if she's not careful she'll be as fat as a pig by this time tomorrow; she must be starving, to lay into me like this. ‘Just as well, then,' he said woodenly. ‘Anyway, that's that cleared up, I'm glad we've got it all straight at last. Good luck with your mission, or whatever you want to call it.'

‘Thank you.'

He stood up. His legs just about supported his weight. ‘And if there's anything you can do to get the fucking demons off my case, it'd be appreciated. Quite understand if you can't, but if you can it'd be nice.'

Chris didn't wait for an answer. She'd have to protect him now; because if they caught him again and asked him the same question -
where is she?
- this time he knew the answer, and of course he'd tell them: no heroism, no I'd-rather-die-than-talk. Damn it, they wouldn't even need to ask, he'd be squealing the information at them so loud they wouldn't be able to hear themselves think. And then they'd kill him, of course, but knowing that wouldn't make any difference. At least I'm honest with myself, he thought. And Jill (was that her real name? He had no idea what demons were called - Ashtorel and Boamoth and stuff like that, but not Jill Ettin-Smith) knew him well enough to have no illusions at all—

If I were Jill, he thought suddenly, I'd have me killed.

No question but that she could do it. He could just imagine Derek, or one of the other Day-Glo people, quietly and efficiently putting him to sleep: poison, or something that'd look like a domestic accident, and the knowledge would die with him, and billions of lives would be saved, so that was all right.

Just as well I'm not her, then; I'd do it because I'm a coward, just go to my liver and follow the yellow brick road. Whatever else she may be, Jill's no coward. And besides, if she thought I had to be got rid of, she'd have done it then and there, the way she always did her homework the moment she got in from school, rather than leaving it till the last minute like the rest of us. I'd never have left the flat alive.

Now what, Chris thought as he walked slowly back to the car. So, I solved the mystery, all by myself; dead clever, but you don't get a prize or even a Blue Peter badge. Instead, you lose your best friend, and the consolation prize you get to keep and take home with you is—well, the truth: the shining, all-transcending, most-important-thing-there-is bloody truth; men have fought for it, gone to the scaffold and the rack for it, laid waste whole continents for it, but when you actually think about it rationally, what fucking use is the truth anyhow? Can't spend it. Can't invest it in high-yield capital-growth bonds. Can't even have it mounted in a silver frame and hang it on the wall. So; all very well in its place, the ideal gift for the man who has everything, but on balance he'd far rather have his friend and his life back, thank you so terribly much all the same.

He drove home; and as he waited at some traffic lights, he thought yes, but how
did
I figure it out? Got the right answer, true enough, but it's like maths, you've got to show your working or you don't get the marks. There was something else, some little thing I noticed and then I
knew
, but I don't seem to be able to account for what it was.