In Your Dreams

by Holt, Tom

  ‘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 him
self 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.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Mr Dao was standing beside him. ‘Thank you,’ he added, bowing gracefully. ‘A rare treat. We are most grateful.’

  Paul stared at him in horror, as a drip of blood trickled down his chin and fell away. ‘I didn’t mean—’ he mumbled. ‘Accident. The rabbit—’

  ‘No doubt.’ There was a flicker of amusement in Mr Dao’s deep eyes. ‘There is a saying on your side of the Divide, I believe: never work with children and animals. You are obviously a brave man.’ He licked his lips, like a cat. ‘To business,’ he said. ‘The cheques to be paid in?’

  ‘Right.’ Paul shivered, and reached behind him. Someone, presumably Melze, put a wad of papers into his hand, and he passed them over. Mr Dao took them from him and bowed again.

  Mr Dao was looking past him. ‘Your assistant, presumably?’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would care to introduce me?’

  Cursing himself for his carelessness, Paul muttered, ‘Demelza Horrocks, she’s standing in for Benny Shumway. I’m just, um, showing her how it’s done.’

  ‘Delighted,’ said Mr Dao. ‘You probably can’t imagine how great a pleasure it is for us to see new faces here; especially,’ he added with a dignified smile, ‘such a charming face as this. Would Miss Horrocks care for a cup of—?’

  ‘No,’ Paul growled. ‘And I’ve told her, so—’

  Mr Dao shrugged. ‘Naturally,’ he said. ‘You must excuse the lapse. Now, unless there’s any further business?’

  Paul shook his head, and Mr Dao abruptly vanished, leaving no trace that he’d been there at all. Paul stood still for a moment; he very much wanted to throw up, but he reckoned that he’d been far too liberal with his bodily fluids already. He swallowed a couple of times, then slowly turned round. The feeling of nausea stayed with him until the last bolt had been fastened and the last key turned.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, finally daring to look and see if Melze was there. ‘It’s not usually that bad. It was my fault, I—’

  She was looking puzzled. ‘What was bad about that?’ she said.

  Paul opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  ‘All right,’ she was saying, ‘it’s a bit of a chore, but what the hell, it’s out of the office. Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘But—’ Paul narrowed his eyes. Melze was still looking at him as though there was something she’d missed. ‘What exactly did you see in there?’ he asked.

  The question clearly puzzled her. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we went through the door, and then we were in this long corridor, with carpet and doors on either side, fire extinguishers, the usual stuff. Then we crossed a courtyard and you knocked on a door, and this nice old Chinese bloke opened it. Then you gave him the cheques, and he asked if I’d like a cup of tea. You said no – which is fair enough, I mean, we’ve got things we need to be getting on with, we can’t sit around drinking tea all day. And then we came back. That’s it.’

  ‘Oh,’ Paul said. ‘That’s—’ He didn’t know what to say. ‘That’s all right, then. Only, um, I get claustrophobic in long, narrow corridors. I thought you might, too.’

  Melze shook her head. ‘It’s sweet of you to be concerned,’ she said, ‘but I’m all right like that. It’s heights I can’t be doing with, so I’m glad there weren’t any stairs or anything.’

  ‘You didn’t see—’ As he heard himself say the words, he wished he hadn’t spoken. ‘You didn’t see any rabbits, anything like that?’

  Her expression was a study in bewilderment. ‘Rabbits?’

  He nodded. ‘White rabbits.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ She laughed, a little. ‘You mean, great big white ones in waistcoats with watches, saying, Oh my ears and whiskers. Yes, it was a bit like that, wasn’t it? All those doors and stuff.’

  Paul could probably have found an excuse to hang around the cashier’s office for a bit; judging by Melze’s expression when he excused himself and left, maybe she was expecting him to. But he wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  There was, he told himself as he clumped slowly down the stairs, an obvious explanation, if only he wasn’t too stupid to figure it out. Clearly she hadn’t seen the same things as he had. Perhaps it was a magic thing. Perhaps you only saw the nothingness and the blood and heard the dead relatives if you had the magical knack. Melze didn’t, so maybe she saw some kind of interdimensional screen saver, put there so that the paranormally challenged wouldn’t realise where they were and start panicking. That made sense, surely—

  (Paul stopped; something had caught his eye. He looked round, but everything seemed to be as close to normal as it ever was. Paranoia, he told himself; a great excuse but a lousy lifestyle.)

  It made sense, all right; it made sense of a whole lot of things. For the last few hours, he’d been trying hard not to think about the sudden and savage jolt of pain he’d felt when Melze had touched his hand; because there was a limit to how much bewilderment he could handle at any one time, and his instinct was to ignore the thing that disturbed him most. But suppose; suppose it was a condition of this magical stuff that people who had it were confined, where what the TV chat shows call interpersonal relationships are concerned, to their own kind. It wasn’t the first time he’d touched a girl, after all; but Sophie had been One Of Us, and Melze wasn’t. A great deal might be accounted for in those terms. Wouldn’t it be interesting, and convenient, if he could dump the blame for his pathetic record in matters of true love on the sneaky little sorcery gene? If there was some sort of inbuilt defence mechanism in his genetic whatchamacallit to stop him forming attachments with people who couldn’t do magic— And he could explain why the defences had lapsed long enough for Melze to get to the point of buying him lunch: she was spending all her time in a magic environment and as far as those pesky genetic watchdogs were concerned she probably smelt of the stuff enough to slip past the perimeter defences. How about that for a theory, huh?

  As Paul developed and refined his shiny new hypothesis, it did occur to him that pretty well every such rationalisation he’d come up with since joining JWW had turned out to be hopelessly wrong. Even so; at some point, he was bound to figure something out right. Question was, did he want this to be that one time? If it transpired that he couldn’t touch Melze without feeling as though he’d just put his fingers in a coffee grinder, was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  Good question.

  He’d reached the bottom of the central staircase and was about to turn left down the corridor that led to his office. Something was wrong.

  That wasn’t as unusual, or as scary, as all that. Paul knew, though he’d never actually done a scientific test, that the
number of steps in the central staircase varied; some days there were more than others. That was fine. The geography of 70 St Mary Axe was beguilingly flexible. Rooms came and went, or moved, like sunflowers, to catch the daylight (with an attendant saving in electricity that no doubt delighted Mr Tanner). He’d heard it said that Humphrey Wells, the disgraced ex-partner now serving the firm in the capacity of Xerox machine, was in the habit of shortening corridors when he was running late for a meeting, sometimes forgetting to put them back again afterwards. Logically, if rooms appeared or vanished, the staircases would have to be edited accordingly, or else they’d overrun or fall short. Likewise, it was widely rumoured that when Countess Judy and the creative-and-media department held a meeting with their opposite numbers from another firm or organisation, the resulting build-up of superheated glamour had a nasty tendency to leak into the environment, changing the colours and textures of curtains, carpets, wallpaper and other glamour-sensitive fixtures and spontaneously creating Constable prints and trailing maidenhair ferns. All that sort of thing he’d learned to take in his stride or ignore, just as he no longer needed to remember to keep his hands and the end of his tie at least eighteen inches from the teeth of the shredder when it was switched on, if nobody had used it for a day or so. This thing he’d noticed, coming down the stairs and now at the foot of them, was something else. That was probably bad.

  Then he saw it. Leaning against a wall, butter-wouldn’tmelt-in-its-saddlebags, was the bicycle that had accosted him in the closed-file store. Staring at it now, he began to remember seeing it about the place on other occasions, before it had spoken to him; but of course he’d assumed then that it was just somebody’s bike, an ecologically friendly alternative to Tubes and taxis. He thought for a moment, then turned to face it.

  ‘Are you following me?’ Paul said.

  Silence. Ridiculous, he said to himself. I’m talking to a bicycle.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ the bicycle replied.