The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  The policeman pedalled after him, blowing his whistle, and the Willing Warlock climbed over the nearest wall and ran again, with the whistle still sounding, until he arrived in the backyard of a one-time Accredited Witch who was a friend of his. “What shall I do?” he panted.

  “How should I know?” said the Accredited Witch. “I’m not used to doing without magic any more than you are. The only soul I know who’s still in business is a French wizard in Shepherd’s Bush.”

  “Tell me his address,” said the Willing Warlock.

  The Accredited Witch told him. “But it won’t do you a scrap of good,” she said unhelpfully. “Jean-Pierre always charges the earth. Now I’ll thank you to get out of here before you bring the police down on me, too.”

  The Willing Warlock went out of the Witch’s front door into Coven Street and blenched at the sound of police whistles still shrilling in the distance. Since it seemed to him that he had no time to waste, he hurried to the nearest toy shop and parted with his last half-crown for a toy pistol. Armed with this, he walked into the first Post Office he came to. “Your money or your life,” he said to the Postmistress. The Willing Warlock was a bulky young man who always looked as if he needed to shave and the Postmistress was sure he was a desperate character. She let him clear out her safe. The Willing Warlock put the money and the pistol in his pocket and hailed a taxi in which he drove all the way to Shepherd’s Bush, feeling this was the next best thing to having a car of his own. It cost a lot, but he arrived at the French wizard’s office still with £273 6s 4d in his pocket.

  The French wizard shrugged in a very French way. “What is it you expect me to do for you, my friend? Me, I try not to offend the police. If you wish me to help it will cost you.”

  “A hundred pounds,” said the Willing Warlock. “Hide me somehow.”

  Jean-Pierre did another shrug. “For that money,” he said, “I could hide you two ways. I could turn you into a small round stone—”

  “No thanks,” said the Willing Warlock.

  “—and keep you in a drawer,” said Jean-Pierre. “Or I could send you to another world entirely. I could even send you to a world where you would have your magic again—”

  “Have my magic?” exclaimed the Willing Warlock.

  “—but that would cost you twice as much,” said Jean-Pierre. “Yes, naturally you could have your magic again, if you went somewhere where Chrestomanci has no power. The man is not all-powerful.”

  “Then I’ll go to one of those places,” said the Willing Warlock.

  “Very well.” In a bored sort of way, Jean-Pierre picked up a pack of cards and fanned them out. “Choose a card. This decides which world you will grace with your blue chin.” As the Willing Warlock stretched out his hand to take a card, Jean-Pierre moved them out of reach. “Whatever world it is,” he said, “the money there will be quite different from your pounds, shillings and pence. You might as well give me all you have.”

  So the Willing Warlock handed over all his £273 6s 4d. Then he was allowed to pick a card. It was the ten of clubs. Not a bad card, the Willing Warlock thought. He was no Fortune Teller, of course, but he knew the ten of clubs meant that someone would bully somebody. He decided that he would be the one doing the bullying, and handed back the card. Jean-Pierre tossed all the cards carelessly down on a table. The Willing Warlock just had time to see that every single one was the ten of clubs, before he found himself still in Shepherd’s Bush, but in another world entirely.

  He was standing in what seemed to be a car park beside a big road. On that road, more cars than he had ever seen in his life were rushing past, together with lorries and the occasional big red bus. There were cars standing all round him. This was a good world indeed! The Willing Warlock sniffed the delicious smell of petrol and turned to the nearest parked car to see how it worked. It looked rather different from the one he had tried to steal in Wolvercote. Experimentally, he made a magic pass over its bonnet. To his delight, the bonnet promptly sprang open an inch or so. The French wizard had not lied. He had his magic back.

  The Willing Warlock was just about to heave up the bonnet and plunge into the mysteries beneath, when he saw a large lady in uniform, with a yellow band round her cap, tramping meaningly towards him. She must be a policewoman. Now he had his magic back, the Willing Warlock did not panic. He simply let go of the bonnet and sauntered casually away. Rather to his surprise, the policewoman did not follow him. She just gave him a look of deep contempt and tucked a message of some kind behind the wiper of the car.

  All the same, the Willing Warlock felt it prudent to go on walking. He walked to another street, looking at cars all the time, until something made him look up. In front of him was a grand marble building. CITY BANK, it said, in rich gold letters. Now here, thought the Willing Warlock, was a better way to get a car than simply stealing it. If he robbed this bank, he could buy a car of his very own. He took the toy pistol out of his pocket and went in through the grand door.

  Inside it was very hushed and polite and calm. Though there were quite a lot of people there, waiting in front of the cashiers or walking about in the background, nobody seemed to notice the Willing Warlock standing uncertainly waving his pistol. He was forced to go and push the nearest queue of people aside and point the pistol at the lady behind the glass there. “Money or your life,” he said.

  They seemed to notice him then. Somebody screamed. The lady behind the glass went white and put her thumb on a button near her cash-drawer. “How—how much money sir?” she faltered.

  “All of it,” said the Willing Warlock. “Quickly.” Maybe, he thought afterwards, that was a bit greedy. But it seemed so easy. Everyone, on both sides of the glassed-in counter, was standing frozen, staring at him, afraid of the pistol. And the lady readily opened her cash-drawer and began counting out wads of five-pound-notes, fumbling with haste and eagerness.

  While she was doing it, the door of the bank opened and someone came in. The Willing Warlock glanced over his shoulder and saw it was only a small man in a pin-striped suit, who seemed to be staring like everybody else. The lady was actually passing the Willing Warlock the first bundle of money, when the small man shouted out in a very big voice, “Don’t be a fool! He’s only joking. That’s a toy pistol!”

  At once everyone near turned on the Willing Warlock. Three men tried to grab him. An old lady swung her handbag and clouted him round the head. “Take that, you thief!” A bell began to ring loudly. And, worse still, an unholy howling started somewhere outside, coming closer and closer. “That’s the police coming!” screamed the old lady, and she went for the Willing Warlock again.

  The Willing Warlock turned and ran, with everyone trying to stop him and getting in his way. The last person who got in his way was the small man in the pin-striped suit. He took hold of the Willing Warlock’s sleeve and said, “Wait a minute—”

  The Willing Warlock was so desperate by then that he fired the toy pistol at him. A stream of water came out of it and caught the small man in one eye, drenching his smart suit. The small man ducked and let go. The Willing Warlock burst out through the door of the bank. The howling outside was hideous. It was coming from a white car labelled POLICE, with a blue flashing light on top, which was racing down the street towards him. There was rather a nice car parked by the kerb, facing towards the police car. A big, shiny, expensive car. Even in his panic, and wondering how the police had been fetched so quickly, that car caught the Willing Warlock’s eye. As the police car screamed to a stop and policemen started to jump out of it, the Willing Warlock tore open the door of the nice car, jumped into the seat behind the steering-wheel, and set it going in a burst of desperate magic.

  Behind him, the policemen jumped back into their car, which then did a screaming U-turn and came after him. The Willing Warlock saw them coming in a little mirror somebody had thoughtfully fixed to the windscreen. He flung the nice car round a corn
er out of sight. But the police car followed. The Willing Warlock screamed round another corner, and another. But the police car stuck to him like a leech. The Willing Warlock realized that he had better spare a little magic from making the car go in order to make the car look different. So, as he screamed round yet another corner into the main road he had first seen, he put out his last ounce of magic and turned the car bright pink. To his relief, the police car went past him and roared away into the distance.

  The Willing Warlock relaxed a little. He had a nice car of his own now and he seemed to be safe for the moment. But he still had to learn how to make the thing go properly, instead of by magic, and, as he soon discovered, there seemed to be all sorts of other rules to driving that he had never even imagined. For one thing, all the cars kept to the left-hand side, and motorists seemed to get very annoyed when they found a large pink car coming towards them on the other side of the road. Then there were some streets where all the cars seemed to be coming towards the pink car, and the people in those cars shook their fists and pointed and hooted at the Willing Warlock. Then again, sometimes there were lights at crossroads, and people did not seem to like you going past them when they were red.

  The Willing Warlock was not very clever, but he did realize quite soon that cars were not often pink. A pink car that broke all these rules was bound to be noticed. So, while he drove on and on, looking for some quiet street where he could learn how the car really worked, he sought about for some other way to disguise the car. He saw that all cars had a plate in front and behind, with letters and numbers on. That made it easy. He changed the front number plate to WW100 and the back one to XYZ123 and let the car return to its nice shiny grey colour and drove soberly on till he found some back streets lined with quiet houses. By this time, he was quite tired. He had never had much magic and he was out of practice anyway. He was glad to stop and look for the knob that made the engine go.

  There were rows of knobs, but none of them seemed to be the one he wanted. One knob squirted water all over the front window. Another opened the side windows and brought wet windy air sighing in. Another flashed lights. Yet another made a loud hooting, which made the Willing Warlock jump. People would notice! He became panicky, and found his neck going hot and cold in gusts, with a specially cold, panicky spot in the middle, at the back, just above his collar. He tried another knob. That played music. The next knob made voices speak. “Over and out…Yes. Pink. I don’t know how he got a respray that quick, but it’s definitely him…” The Willing Warlock, in even more of a panic, realized he was listening to the police by magic, and that they were still hunting him. In his panic, he pressed another knob, which made wipers start furiously waving across the windscreen, wiping off the water the first knob had squirted.

  “Doh!” said the Willing Warlock, and put up his hand irritably to rub that panicky cold spot at the back of his neck.

  The cold place was connected to a long warm hairy muzzle. Whatever owned the muzzle objected to being wiped away. It let out a deep bass growl and a blast of warm smelly air.

  The Willing Warlock snatched his hand away. In his terror, he pressed another button, which caused the seat he was in to collapse gently backwards until he was lying on his back. He found himself staring up into the face of the largest dog he had ever seen. It was a great pepper-coloured brute, with white fangs to match the size of the rest of it. Evidently he had stolen a dog as well as a car.

  “Grrrrr,” repeated the dog. It bent its great head until the noise vibrated the Willing Warlock’s skull like a road drill, and sniffed his face loudly.

  “Get off,” said the Willing Warlock tremulously.

  Worse followed. Something surged in the back seat beside the huge dog. A small, shrill voice, sounding very sleepy, said, “Why have we stopped for, Daddy?

  “Oh my gawd!” said the Willing Warlock. He turned his eyes gently, sideways under the great dog’s face. Sure enough, there was a child on the back seat beside the dog, a rather small child with reddish hair and a slobbery sleepy face.

  “You’re not my Daddy,” this child said accusingly.

  The Willing Warlock rather liked children on the whole, but he knew he would have to get rid of this one somehow. To steal a car and a dog and a child would probably put him in prison for life. People really did not like you stealing children. Frantically he reached forward and pushed knobs. Lights lit, wipers swatted and unswatted, voices spoke, a hooter sounded, but at last he pushed the right one and the seat rose gracefully upright again. He used his magic on the rear door and it sprang open. “Out,” he said. “Both of you. Get out and wait and your Daddy will find you.”

  Dog and child turned and stared at the open door. Their faces turned back to the Willing Warlock, puzzled and slightly indignant. It was their car, after all.

  The Willing Warlock tried a bit of coaxing. “Get out. Nice dog. Good boy.”

  “Grrrr,” said the dog, and the child said, “I’m not a boy.”

  “I meant the dog,” the Willing Warlock said hastily. The dog’s growl enlarged to a rumble that shook the car. Perhaps the dog was not a boy either. The Willing Warlock knew when he was beaten. It was a pity, when it was such a nice car, but this world was full of cars. Provided he made sure the next one was empty, he could steal one any time he liked. He slammed the rear door shut and started to open his own.

  The dog was too quick for him. Before he had reached for the handle, its great teeth were fastened into the shoulder of his jacket, right through the cloth. He could feel them digging into his skin underneath. And it growled harder than ever. “Let go,” the Willing Warlock said, without hope, and sat very still.

  “Go on driving,” commanded the child.

  “Why?” said the Willing Warlock.

  “Because I like driving in cars,” said the child. “Towser will let you go when you drive.”

  “I don’t know how to make the car go,” the Willing Warlock said sullenly.

  “Stupid,” said the child. “Daddy uses those keys there, and he pushes on the pedals with his feet.”

  Towser backed this up with another growl, and dug his teeth in a little. Towser clearly knew his job, and his job seemed to be to back up anything the child said. The Willing Warlock sighed, thinking of years in prison, but he found the keys and located the pedals. He turned the keys. He pushed on the pedals. The engine started with a roar. Then another voice spoke. “You have forgotten to fasten your seatbelt,” it said. “I cannot proceed until you do so.”

  It was here that the Willing Warlock realized that his troubles had only just begun. The car was bullying him now. He had no idea where the seatbelt was, but it is amazing what you can do if a mouthful of white fangs are fastened into your shoulder. The Willing Warlock found the seatbelt. He did it up. He found a lever that said forwards and pushed it. He pressed on pedals. The engine roared, but nothing else happened. “You are wasting petrol,” the car told him acidly. “Release the hand-brake. I cannot pro—” The Willing Warlock found a sort of stick in the floor and moved it. It snapped like a crocodile and the car jerked. “You are wasting petrol,” the car said, boringly. “Release the footbrake. I cannot proceed—”

  Luckily, since Towser was growling even louder than the car, the Willing Warlock took his left foot off a pedal first. They shot off down the road. “You are wasting petrol,” the car told him.

  “Oh shut up,” the Willing Warlock said. But nothing shut the car up, he discovered, except not pressing so hard on the right-hand pedal. Towser, on the other hand, seemed satisfied as soon as the car moved. He let go of the Willing Warlock and loomed behind him on the back seat, while the child sat and chanted “Go on, go on, go on driving.”

  The Willing Warlock kept on driving. There is nothing else you can do if a child, a dog the size of Towser, and a car all combine to make you. At least the car was easy to drive. All the Willing Warlock had to do was sit there no
t pressing the pedal too much and keep turning into the emptiest streets. He had time to think. He knew the dog’s name. If he could find out the child’s name, then he could work a spell on them both to make them let him go.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, turning into a wide straight road with room for three cars abreast in it.

  “Jemima Jane,” said the child. “Go on, go on, go on driving.”

  The Willing Warlock drove, muttering a spell. While he did, Towser made a flowing sort of jump and landed in the passenger seat beside him, where he sat in a royal way, staring out at the road. The Willing Warlock cowered away from him and finished the spell in a gabble. The beast was as big as a lion!

  “You are wasting petrol,” remarked the car.

  Perhaps these things caused the Willing Warlock to muddle the spell. All that happened was that Towser turned invisible.

  There was an instant shriek from the back seat. “Where’s Towser?”

  The invisible space on the front passenger seat growled horribly. The Willing Warlock did not know where its teeth were. He hurriedly revoked the spell. Towser loomed beside him, looking reproachful.

  “You’re not to do that again!” said Jemima Jane.

  “I won’t if we all get out and walk,” the Willing Warlock said cunningly.

  A silence met this suggestion, with an undercurrent of snarl to it. The Willing Warlock gave up for the moment and kept on driving. There were no houses by the road anymore, only trees, grass and a few cows, and the road stretched into the distance, endlessly. The nice grey car, labelled WW100 in front and XYZ123 behind, zoomed gently onwards for nearly an hour. The sun began setting in gory clouds, behind some low green hills.

  “I want my supper,” announced Jemima Jane. At the word supper, Towser yawned and started to dribble. He turned to look thoughtfully at the Willing Warlock, obviously wondering which bits of him tasted best. “Towser’s hungry too,” said Jemima Jane.