May Contain Traces of Magic (6 page)

Oh well, Chris thought; I knew I recognised that smell, and I was right. Clever old me. Now do something really clever, and get yourself out of here in one piece.

From the counter to the door, seven yards, seven ordinary paces, seven small steps for a man. No way in hell was he going to turn his back on the counter. He started to move; and, more to keep his mind occupied and off the thing behind the counter he couldn't see, he looked around him, at the otherwise perfectly normal shop that just happened not to have anything on its shelves right now—

Correction: he'd missed something. In the middle of the top shelf, perfectly still and facing him, was the ugliest garden gnome he'd ever set eyes on in his life. Odd, Chris thought; that's the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a garden centre rather than a magical-goods shop. Not that anybody, not even the disturbed people who buy garden gnomes, would ever part with money for
that
—

The gnome winked at him.

Not supposed to do that
.

The gnome winked at him again, and grinned. And, now he came to think of it, that wasn't a gnome, it was something quite other; and the long, flat shiny thing that it was holding in its palpably-not-gnome's hands wasn't a fishing rod, either. Oh, he thought. Well, it was a pretty lousy excuse for a life, but it'll be over any minute now, and then maybe I can be something else.

The thing that demonstrably wasn't a gnome was looking at Chris, head tilted just a little on one side; considering him, quite calmly, weighing up the necessary expenditure of effort against the likely rewards and benefits. He kept perfectly still while the un-gnome was thinking, just in case any action on his part, any slight movement, say, or funny little squeaking noise he might make should affect the creature's judgement. It took its time, and he had a nasty feeling that his left foot, frozen in the act of taking a step back, was starting to go to sleep. He was wondering just how long he could keep it up, in fact, when the creature (not a gnome; quite sure about that) shook its disproportionately large head an inch or so from side to side, and its lips moved, shaping the words
no, not today
.

As Chris put his weight on his numb left foot, he wobbled, and that made the creature twitch; like a wolf, he thought, instinctively programmed to react to movements of prey species that were suggestive of weakness or panic. But he kept going, and it didn't move, though its eyes were still fixed on him, downloading information at a tremendous rate, every detail of his body weight and mass, likely speed, agility, defensive and evasive capabilities. As his shoulders drew level with the frame of the open door he saw it yawn. Then he spun round and ran.

Angela was standing by the car, for crying out loud. ‘Get in,' Chris howled, lunging for the door handle, his other hand scrabbling in his pocket for his keys.

‘What's going on?' she said. ‘Has something—?'

‘
Get in the fucking car
.'

Tone of voice, you see. Only, he knew it wasn't something he'd be able to do in cold blood, so to speak. It needed that extra incentive.

Chris didn't actually look to see if Angela was safely inside, or if she'd fastened her seat belt. He twisted the key, felt a stab or pure joy as the engine fired, and jabbed his elbow down on the locking pin to lock all the doors. A quick glance back towards the shop door, then a fluent wrench at the gear lever, and his left foot stamped down on the clutch—

‘Aren't we going to make the call, then?' Angela said.

Chris reversed fast and without looking, felt the back end of the car bash into something, stuck the gearstick into first and floored the pedal; round the corner, thirty seconds at maximum burn up the main road, then into the first lay-by he came to. He didn't make a totally wonderful job of stopping; in fact, he rammed the car's nose into a hedge and stalled the engine. Then he wound down his window, stuck his head out of it and -

‘Are you feeling all right?' Angela asked.

- Threw up with prodigious force; which was, he felt, about as much answer as her question merited.

‘Fine,' he croaked, wiping his mouth. ‘Never fucking better. And you?'

Now she was looking at him as though he had two heads. ‘What's the matter?' she said. ‘There's something wrong, isn't there?'

‘You might say that.' His hands were shaking so badly he couldn't even get his phone out of his pocket. ‘Here,' he snapped, ‘make yourself useful. Ring this number.'

With surprising meekness, Angela took out her phone, flipped up the lid, and waited. Chris couldn't remember the number, of course. It was stored in his phone, along with all the other useful data.

‘Call the office,' he said, his voice flat as he gave her the number. ‘Ask Julie on reception to get you the number for Felixstowe. She'll know what that means,' he added quickly, as her lips parted. ‘Then dial that number and hand me the phone, OK?'

He'd never actually spoken to Felixstowe before, and when a cool, brisk female voice came on the line and asked him which service he required, his mind went blank, and he sat frozen for several seconds while the phone squeaked ‘Hello?' at him, until the girl poked him hard in the ribs, and he pulled himself together with a snap.

‘Demon control,' Chris said.

‘Putting you through,' said the cool voice, and a moment later, a man was asking him where he was, how many, what subspecies—

‘I don't know, do I?' Chris snapped. ‘Lesser greater spotted Ibbotson's fucking warbler. It was smallish and sort of grey, it was sitting on a shelf in a shop and it winked at me. All right?'

The man told him there was no need to shout (which was, Chris strongly felt, simply not true) and started asking him for his name, date of birth, address, occupation, work and home phone numbers, e-mail address—

He gave it, then doubletook and said, ‘What do you need my e-mail address for?'

‘We're compiling a database,' the man replied, ‘as part of our ongoing e-technology initiative. Would you like to receive our monthly newsletter?'

Quite some time later, the man told him to stay put and a dedicated incident-management team would be along at some point to sort it all out. ‘Thank you for calling Demon Control Services,' he concluded. ‘Should you require further assistance, access our website at doubleyoudoubleyou . . .'

‘Here,' the girl pointed out, ‘that's my phone. Don't do that, you'll break it.'

‘Sorry,' Chris said, and handed it back.

She put it away. ‘They didn't seem very helpful,' she said. He shrugged.

‘Government,' he replied. ‘Anyway, they'll take it from here. None of our business any more. We just stay put and wait for them, and everything'll be just fine,' he added, glancing to make sure that the car doors were locked. Not, he reflected, that a little bit of glass and pressed steel sheet would slow up one of
them
for very long.

‘Back there.' Angela's voice was quieter and a little bit higher. ‘Was it really a—?'

‘Yes,' Chris said.

‘Oh.' Not scared, though; he'd assumed it was fear, but it wasn't. He couldn't actually decide what it was. ‘What had it done?'

‘Killed the manager,' he replied. ‘Which is unusual,' he added, more thinking aloud than communicating, ‘because they aren't usually that violent. I've got a friend in the agency, and she's told me a bit about them. They don't usually attack unless they have to, it uses up a lot of energy and they're very - efficient.' He frowned. ‘I don't think it was hungry, the body was just lying there, hadn't really been touched. Also, it had cleared off all the shelves, like it was looking for something. My guess is, it was there to get weapons. It's a line DCM specialise in, and the one I saw was holding something like a great big knife; sort of turning it over in its hands and looking at it, the way you do when you've just bought something.' Chris shivered. ‘Anyway, like I said, not our problem. I'd better phone in and explain, get Julie to ring round the shops, tell them we've been held up.'

They arrived much sooner than he'd expected: a fleet of white vans, a couple of marked police cars, and suddenly he was being talked at by half a dozen people at once, all of them asking the same things, none of them appearing to listen to a word he said. They took no notice of the girl; she sat still and quiet for a long time, then got out a book and began to read.

‘It was shortish, sort of a grey colour, with a big head,' Chris said, for the sixth or seventh time, ‘and it just sat there on the shelf, grinning at me.'

The man frowned, as if that made no sense at all. ‘Do you know if it was armed? Had it got a weapon of any kind?'

‘Yes, I told that other man just now, it had a big sort of knife thing, I think it stole it from the shop—'

‘Do you think the weapon might have come from the shop? They're listed as specialising in enchanted arms and armour.'

Chris sighed. ‘You know what, it's a distinct possibility, now you come to mention it. Never would have occurred to me, but—'

The man was tapping something into a laptop resting on the car roof. ‘You'd better give me your full name, address, date of birth—'

It occurred to Chris that unless he did something, this might very well continue for the rest of his life. ‘Just out of interest,' he said, ‘do you know someone called Jill Ettin-Smith? She works in your department, and—'

The man looked up from his screen. ‘You know Jill?'

He nodded. ‘We were at school together.'

‘Oh.' The man snapped his laptop shut. ‘Oh, right. Actually, she should be along any minute.'

‘Really? Small world.'

‘Not really. She's the head of this department.'

Chris was surprised, and impressed. Jill talked about work a lot, sure, but very little (now he came to think about it) about what she actually did there; whether she was important or not, stuff like that. Part of him felt slightly ashamed at being surprised. The rest of him couldn't quite come to terms with someone who'd copied off him in maths at age twelve being put in charge of anything.

He didn't see her, though. They stopped asking him questions, piled back into their vans and drove away, and he assumed she must've gone straight to the shop, which was fair enough (though surely there was very little chance that
it
would still be there, after all this time). And it stood to reason, it was a serious business and she was a professional, not to mention a head of department, serious management, she wouldn't have time to stop off and pass the time of day with an old school friend, even though he'd obviously just had the shock of his life and could've done with the reassurance of a familiar face—

‘Right,' Chris said, rather loudly, ‘that's that, we'd better get on and do some work, especially since we probably won't be getting any orders from DCM any time soon. Pity, I was pretty sure I'd be able to get shot of three dozen TR77Bs on them.'

The girl gave him a look that'd have annoyed him under other circumstances, but after all the fuss and aggravation she was the least of his problems. He asked her for the map and pretended to study it while he pulled himself together.

‘Now then,' he said, ‘Sedgely's.'

Not the first time he'd come across that smell.

The first time, many years ago but still crisp and sharp in his mind, lodged there like shrapnel from some old war; no bother most days, but gradually moving inwards, always gently pressing on the nerve. The stupid thing was, he should have missed it; he had no business being in there when it happened, he was breaking about a dozen school rules, and for what? Just some stupid dare.

It had all been Benny's fault; Chris had told them all, the headmaster, the girl's parents, the men from the government. Benny had dared him to spend the whole lunch break hiding in a cubicle of the girls' toilets - why this was important to Benny, he had no idea and it hadn't occurred to him to ask. Foot soldiers don't ask the field marshal what he wants the stupid hill for. He'd been given his orders, and that was that.

The first twenty minutes had been really rather dull. He'd heard cubicle doors closing, the occasional whoosh of plumbing, nothing particularly titillating or suggestive of the hidden mysteries of biological otherness. He'd been wishing he'd brought his maths homework to be getting on with when he heard voices he recognised, and froze. Karen Hitchins was asking Jill Ettin-Smith if she could borrow her RE notes. He didn't really give a damn about Karen Hitchins's opinion of him, but Jill was another matter entirely. She had the knack of being disappointed in people; the look that said, I thought you were different. Worse than detention. Chris concentrated on keeping perfectly still and breathing very quietly.

A third voice; well, they always go around in threes, don't they? He couldn't make out who it was, so he consulted his mental database of school political alliances. Karen and Jill used to go around with Amelia Morris, but earlier that term Amelia had defected to the cool gang, and Ellie Kranz had been co-opted to replace her. Five would get you one, therefore, that the third voice was that of Ellie, about whom he knew nothing and cared less—

Then the smell. Because it was all flowery and sweet, Chris had assumed it was some kind of toiletry or cosmetic; from its intensity, he guessed someone had just spilt the bottle. The conversation stopped abruptly - he'd felt a cramp of fear in his stomach; had they seen the toes of his palpably masculine shoes through the gap under the door? And then the scream.

Some years later, when he'd moved in with Karen Hitchins, he'd tried to ask her what she'd seen, what had actually happened, but she'd pretended she hadn't heard the question, and he knew better than to mention the subject ever again. Jill had only told him what she'd told the government people: a demon had appeared out of nowhere, killed poor Ellie, ripped her head off her shoulders and vanished, taking the head with it - And afterwards, when his parents collected him from the school, and he'd worked so hard to find the words to tell them: Jill Ettin-Smith said it was a demon, like from Hell, and I know it sounds stupid but I believe her, I think demons must be real. And they'd looked at each other, and then at him, and his dad had said, we believe you, son, we know they're real, listen—