May Contain Traces of Magic (41 page)

Chris was swung round as John's body shouldered the bathroom door open. He tried struggling, but he might as well have tried to stop an elephant by throwing peanuts at it. He looked down, saw the toilet beneath him expand like a mouth opening; he raised his knees and kicked frantically, as John's arms let go and he was falling—

 

It's all right, Chris told himself as the tiled walls flashed past. Any second now, a hummingbird will zoom out of nowhere, and everything will be just fine.

He fell. Then he fell some more. After a while, falling just got boring. He wished he'd brought a book to read.

But he hadn't, so he thought instead. He thought: three guesses where they're sending me. Now, do I believe John when he says it's just some board of inquiry, or do I assume there's something rather more sinister going on? Unknown at this time. Come along, little hummingbird. The further you let me fall, the further you'll have to lift me up again.

Was it his imagination, or was he falling faster this time? It was, Chris realised, possible to gauge his speed by counting the interval between the lights mounted on the walls: two seconds. Pity he hadn't thought to do that last time, or the time before. It felt like he was falling faster, but there could be any number of reasons for that. Besides, don't things fall at a standard speed anyhow, Galileo and cannon-balls and the leaning tower of Pisa? Should've paid attention in physics; too late now.

Slowing down? No, not quite. At some point, he realised he'd stopped falling down, and now he was falling
up
. There was a circle of light directly overhead; tiny, but growing fast, and
oval
. Reckon we can hazard a guess as to what that'll turn out to be.

Still no hummingbird, but he was definitely decelerating as he rose up into the oval glare. It was so bright that he had to close his eyes, and when he opened them he knew exactly where he was - and when, to within ten minutes, give or take a minute. He stuck out a foot, like someone getting off an escalator, balanced on the toilet seat and hopped awkwardly down, taking care not to crash into the cubicle door.

Well, well, Chris thought. Now we are again.

He glanced at his watch hopefully, but both hands were missing. Fine, he thought, be like that. He unlocked the cubicle door and peeped round it. Nobody there yet.

‘Hello?' he said.

‘For crying out loud.' She sounded angry and nervous. ‘Keep your voice down or someone'll hear you.'

‘
SatNav?
'

‘Shush!' she thundered in his ear. ‘And don't look round. You mustn't see me.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's bad luck.'

‘What, you mean, like at weddings?'

‘
Quiet!
'

Defeating the object of the exercise there, Chris thought; but to humour her he lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Is that really you, SatNav? I thought you were dead. I saw your body - there was blood.'

‘Quite,' she hissed back. ‘Your friend Jill murdered me, in cold blood. Robbed me of my physical form, reducing me to a mere voice trapped in a plastic box. I suppose she told you all about it.'

‘Well, yes.' Well, no, actually; because SatNav wasn't a demon, was she? ‘She said you were a dissident ringleader, no, scratch that; she said she mistook you for a dissident ringleader. ' He hesitated. ‘That's not true, is it?'

Hoarse, unhappy laugh. ‘No,' SatNav said, ‘it isn't. I'm not even a demon. She murdered me just because of what I am. Because she could, basically.'

‘Oh.'

‘She didn't tell you, did she?' SatNav went on. ‘About how the demons hunt us, kill us on sight. That's why we're practically extinct now, on both sides of the line. The stupid thing is, they won't even tell us why - whether it's for food or because we've got something they want or because of something we said that pissed them off; we have no idea, but they keep on killing us all the same. We used to try and fight back, but it was pointless, we can't touch them, they're far too strong. And when they kill us, the bitch of it is that we don't die. If only. It's like being what you'd call a ghost, I suppose. A consciousness, a memory, a voice if you're lucky, if you can find something you can talk through, a way of getting a foothold. I was one of the fortunate ones. After I'd been drifting for ten or so years, I got caught in a metaphasic filter and stuffed inside a plastic box. Better still, my box sat right next to a radio and a CD player. When the right music played, I could just about come through, for a little while, a tiny bit of me.' SatNav sighed, and Chris felt suddenly cold. ‘But you know what? It's not the same, somehow. Not like having a body of your own, and three dimensions, and a life.'

She stopped talking. After a moment, Chris said, ‘I'm sorry.'

He heard her draw in a long, ragged breath. ‘There's a sort of vicious irony about it,' she went on. ‘The special gift of the Fey is to be centred immaculately in space and time, the way no other entity ever can be. You've heard of angels dancing on the head of a pin? That's us; we exist on a point of time and space so sharp, so precise, that nothing else could possibly balance on something so small; and from there we can see for
ever
. You can't begin to imagine what it's like; the freedom, the sheer perspective—'

She fell silent again. He didn't like to interrupt.

‘Humans have always believed,' SatNav went on, ‘that in dreams they can see the future. Well, that's us. It's our gift to those less fortunate than ourselves. In dreams we can show you where you're going and what's waiting for you when you get there. We like to guide people, steer them along the best course, avoiding disasters, pointing them in the right direction. It's how we give something back, for the pure joy of being
us
. And so,' she went on, her voice cold and harsh now, ‘when your friend killed me and I was drifting and I landed in the net, what did they turn me into? Well, quite. At the end of the road, turn left. No, not quite the same. Not the same at all.'

‘I'm sorry,' Chris repeated. ‘I wish there was something I could do.'

‘Funny you should say that.'

A sudden stab of intuition. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

‘I see,' he said. ‘So it was you.'

‘That's right.'

‘It was
you
,' he said again. ‘You got Honest John to flush me down the toilet at his shop that time. You wanted—' His head was spinning. It didn't make any sense. ‘You wanted to bring me here.'

‘That's right,' SatNav said cheerfully. ‘It'd have saved a lot of time and trouble, only
she
interfered. Still, we're here now, so no harm done.'

‘Yes, but—' No, hang on a moment, he did understand after all. ‘And the second time,' he said, ‘in the park, with the ducks. You want me to—'

‘Ducks?'

‘There were ducks, in the park, when I met Jill. She wanted me to see inside her mind, so I'd know she was telling the truth. But you hijacked me and brought me here.'

‘Oh, right. Yes, perfectly true. Only, of course that was really just a dry run, so to speak, so you'd see who poor Ellie really was, all along. So that next time you found yourself here, you'd know what to do.' She paused, then added quietly, ‘You do know, don't you?'

Chris nodded. ‘You want me to stop her.'

‘I want you to keep me from getting
killed
. That's not so very much to ask, is it?' Slight pause, then, ‘After all we've meant to each other.'

Meaning what, exactly? ‘You want me to change history,' he said uncomfortably. ‘That's not allowed, is it?'

SatNav laughed. ‘Absolutely not. Strictly forbidden. Unbreakable rule. Prime bloody directive. The thing is, though, if you change history you make it so the new version's what's always been, so nobody can ever possibly know.' She made a noise; on balance it could be described as a giggle, but only in the way a wolf counts as a dog. ‘It happens practically every day, but unless they actually catch you at it, there's nothing they can do. Fait accompli. So you don't need to worry about getting in trouble. And you know it's the right thing to do. Well, don't you?'

‘Do I?'

‘Well, of course you do, silly. Haven't you been listening? Your friend murdered me, in cold blood, while you sat in a cubicle with the door shut and did nothing. It's your duty. Also,' she added, her voice changing dramatically, ‘you do like me, don't you? Just a tiny bit?'

That was very slightly more than Chris could take. He swung round, nearly bashing his nose against the cubicle wall, and looked at her.

She was beautiful; looking back afterwards, he could remember the stunning impact of her face, the most perfectly beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Details, though - nose shape, cheekbone profile, chin geometry, even the colour of her hair - eluded him completely, for some reason.

She frowned. ‘I thought I told you not to do that,' she said.

‘Sorry,' he said. ‘And of course I like you. Sometimes I think you're the only one who's ever understood me. But—'

She laid a hand on his forearm; it was light and thrilling, but he felt rather cold. ‘Save me,' she said, ‘and then we can be together. Just you and me, always.'

Chris's head was throbbing, as bad as a nine-pints-and-a-curry hangover though mercifully without the flatulence. ‘But the demons,' he heard his voice say, ‘the civil war. If I change history, there won't be a truce. That'd be rather selfish, wouldn't it?'

‘Chris, they're
demons
. They're inherently evil entities from another dimension who batten onto human pain and misery, not stray bloody kittens. Pull yourself together and get a bloody grip, for pity's sake.'

She had a point there. Demons. Poor Mr Newsome. And if he saved SatNav, Jill wouldn't grow up to be the dissident ringleader, and the demons would have no call to come after him, and poor Mr Newsome wouldn't have his neck broken like a drinks straw. And, come to that, what about the ducks? If his actions saved just one duck life, surely it'd be worthwhile. Quite so, he told himself, and it'd be doing the right thing, and you-and-me-together-always was really nothing to do with it at all. Really. Honest.

Was it?

‘You can cut that out right now,' Chris said in a high but firm voice. ‘I'll tell you what we meant to each other. You're the little voice that used to tell me how to get from Stourbridge to Bromsgrove without going through Kidderminster, and I'm the poor sod you think you can twist round your little finger with a sexy voice and a dab of glamour. And you know what? It's not enough. Screw you, SatNav, I'm not doing it. Not,' he added quietly, ‘unless you tell me the truth.'

There was a long silence, and maybe her face flickered just a bit, as though she was in need of tracking. ‘Oh,' she said. ‘That old thing.'

‘Well?'

She sighed, and the flickering stopped. ‘Actually,' she said, ‘I have. Mostly, anyway. Look, I'm sorry about the attempted-seduction rubbish, I underestimated you and I apologise. I thought you'd be a pushover, what with your girlfriend leaving you and everything, and, well, I'm in a hurry, I thought it'd be quicker than convincing you by weight of rational argument. My mistake. Please forgive me.'

Ever take a step onto the moral high ground only to find that someone's moved it without you noticing? It can be a bit jarring. ‘All right,' Chris said gruffly, ‘that's fine, forget it. Just be straight with me. Is all that stuff about demons and the Fey really true? Did Jill kill you just because of what you are?'

She nodded. ‘Same way you'd squash a spider just for being there. Though
you
wouldn't,' she added. ‘You'd try and pick it up in a bit of tissue paper and chuck it out the window. You'd probably break two of its legs and crush its guts to squidge in the process, but at least you'd try. Even though you're petrified of spiders,' she said, ‘which is dumb but really quite sweet. That's a uniquely human quality, you know, sweetness. Kind of an alloy of goodness and stupidity; we don't do it, and neither do the demons.' She shook her lovely head, and her hair (golden? auburn? straight? wavy? curled?) floated round her shoulders. ‘Just do it, Chris, and then you'll feel much better, I promise. Trust me. After all, when have I ever lied to you?'

He groaned aloud. All these people who'd never lied to him. ‘I can't,' he said. ‘I mean, be practical. She's a demon, right? If I try and stop her, she'll rip my head off.'

‘Hardly.' Sly grin. ‘She's sweet on you. Oh come on, hadn't you realised? Talking of which,' she added softly, ‘there's other ways history will change, if you save my life. Not that you'd allow selfish considerations to affect your judgement, but I just thought I'd mention it, in passing.'

It was a bit like the time he'd pushed open a door on top of which some merry fellow had balanced a large dish of cold gravy.' What, you mean Jill and—?' Chris blinked, as though the thought was dripping down his fringe into his eyes. ‘But she never fancied me, ever.'

‘Humans,' SatNav sighed. ‘How you ever manage to reproduce with all your weird hang-ups beats me. Of course she did, only you were too shy and stupid to realise. Of course, I don't know if it'd have worked out between you if she hadn't killed me and changed the course of her life for ever. From what I've seen of you, probably not, if you're so dumb that you never realised how she felt. But you never know. Anyway, like I said, it's a side issue. And she's a demon, don't forget. And we both know how you feel about them.'