by Holt, Tom
‘So you came back here,’ Countess Judy went on, crossing the floor until she stood over him, her shadow covering him like a gladiator’s net. ‘I couldn’t believe you’d be that stupid, but I had to check.’
‘You can’t hurt me,’ he said grimly. ‘We’ve been into all this before. There’s some reason I don’t know why you can’t touch me, so please go away.’
She laughed. ‘That was there,’ she said. ‘This is here. And yes, I can’t hex you or steal your soul while you sleep or stop your heart with a smile. But I don’t need to. Hooray for basic technology, I always say.’
That made him change his mind and look up. Judy di Castel’Bianco was grinning, something he’d never seen her do before, and in her hand she had a big, broad-bladed knife. ‘You wouldn’t,’ he said.
‘Bet?’
Paul tried to get up; but the knife was ever so much more frightening even than the grey shapes or the dungeons of Grendel’s Aunt. His knees gave way, and he flopped back into the chair.
‘Your choice,’ she said. ‘Give me back the little Pettingell girl, or I’ll cut your heart out, eat it and go ask Benny. He never could say no to me, poor little darling. Where is he, by the way? I looked in at his office, but he wasn’t there.’
‘I don’t know,’ Paul said. ‘Look, you can’t kill me, not really. You’ll never get away with it.’
Countess Judy giggled. ‘What, you think someone’ll notice that you aren’t around any more? Or notice and care? Anyhow, I’ve wasted enough time lately talking to you. I’m going to count to five. One.’
Paul closed his eyes. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘She’s in the—’
He got no further than that; because the door flew open, and there in the doorway was Ricky Wurmtoter, still wearing his rather tattered dinner jacket and holding a large steel crossbow.
‘Not now, Ricky, I’m busy,’ Judy said, not bothering to turn round. ‘Two.’
‘Pack it in, Judy,’ Ricky said. ‘I know about Benny, and he won’t be helping you any more. Put that knife away before you do someone an injury.’
Still she didn’t turn. ‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘And I suppose if I don’t, you’re going to shoot me. Like I’d even notice.’
‘Oh no,’ Ricky said, moving a step to the right, ‘I know better than that – arrows just go right through you, wouldn’t even smear your lip gloss. No; like I said, Benny’s no longer an option for you, so Paul here’s the only one who can tell you where the girl is. Which is why,’ he went on, clicking some sort of catch on the bow, ‘if you don’t put that knife away and go back to your office right now, I’m going to shoot him.’
‘What?’ Paul said, and his voice sounded just like Judy’s, probably because she’d said the same thing at precisely the same moment. ‘No, please,’ he added. ‘I won’t tell, promise.’
‘It’s okay,’ Ricky told him. ‘Don’t worry about it. I know all about that stuff,’ he added, with an exaggerated nod towards the photo albums on the shelf. ‘Mr Dao told me about the nosebleed. When you get there, just ask for him, he’ll see you right. Then, as soon as it’s safe, I’ll come down and fetch you myself, I promise.’ Ricky was lifting the bow, squinting painstakingly down the arrow shaft for a sure aim, ever the craftsman. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to be concerned about, trust me.’
‘But there is,’ Paul shouted. ‘If you shoot me I’ll die. Really.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a baby,’ said Ricky scornfully. ‘And keep still, can’t you? These things are enough trouble without you wiggling about like a belly dancer.’
‘No!’ Paul squealed. ‘You don’t understand, it’s not—’
But before he could finish what he was saying, Judy whirled round and lunged at Ricky with the knife. Quick as a cat, he sidestepped, swung the bow back on aim, and pressed the trigger.
‘—There any more,’ Paul said, as the arrow pierced his heart and killed him.
Chapter Fifteen
‘You again,’ said a voice from the heart of the mist; and then Paul opened his eyes onto darkness and knew exactly where he was. This time, though—
‘When they paged me,’ the voice was saying, ‘I thought old Jacky Dao was joshing with me, because, well, their sense of humour’s pretty basic around here. I thought, they’re pulling my leg, I checked out the Arrivals board only the other day, and young Paul’s not due down here again for donkey’s years. But here you are,’ Uncle Ernie went on, his voice tightening like a vice. ‘In person, profoundly dead and unfashionably bloody early. What the hell do you think you’re playing at, you stupid arse? Building up your Frequent Dier points?’
Paul looked up at him. ‘I got shot,’ he said, ‘with an arrow,’ he added, so that the full extent of the injustice shouldn’t be lost on his great-uncle. ‘Ricky Wurmtoter shot me, and now I’m dead.’
‘Balls,’ Uncle Ernie snapped. ‘I’ve known young Ricky since he was strangling snakes in his pram. Not the sharpest rapier in the case, but a bloody good shot – he’d never have snuffed you by accident.’
‘Wasn’t an accident,’ Paul mumbled.
‘He shot you on purpose? Why? What did you do to provoke him?’
‘Nothing,’ Paul wailed. ‘He thought he was saving me, or the world, or something. He knew about the nosebleed, but not that I’d already died once and used it up.’
‘Then why in God’s name didn’t you tell him?’ Uncle Ernie exploded. ‘Of all the—’
‘I tried to,’ Paul whimpered, ‘but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept saying, It’s all right, trust me, and then he killed me.’
‘You clown,’ Uncle Ernie sighed. ‘You do realise, for want of a little care and attention on your part the whole bloody project’s fucked up. My life’s work. The future of the human race. Screwed. All because you couldn’t be bothered to pick up a phone or write a memo.’ Tongueless, he could only synthesise a clicking noise out of vestigial memory and illusion. ‘And it was going so well, too. You’d got the girl – I should’ve guessed it was that Benny Shumway, but at least he did the right thing when the time came, so maybe it was all for the best. If only you’d pulled your finger out and woken her up the moment you got out of the castle, everything’d have been just fine. But no, you can’t do a perfectly straightforward little job without buggering it up. And I bet you forgot to burn the chalks.’
Paul was too upset and angry to speak, but he nodded. That seemed to calm Uncle Ernie down a little bit, though not much. He muttered something, and immediately they were standing in front of the bead curtain that served as a door for the safe-deposit vault. ‘Stay there, don’t move, don’t touch anything,’ Ernie growled, as he vanished through the curtain (he walked into it, but the beads didn’t move). ‘That’s something,’ he went on, as he came back holding the insubstantial outline of the chalks box. ‘They’re a bit crumbly, you got them far too hot, but they ought to work.’ He paused, and scowled. ‘You don’t know what these are for, do you?’
Paul shook his head.
‘Bloody hell,’ Ernie said in disgust. ‘First you were a waste of space, now you’re a waste of interdimensional void. These chalks,’ he said wearily, ‘are for writing messages across the gap. You write something here, they can read it back home, where you just came from. Not,’ he added savagely, ‘that they’re going to be a hell of a lot of use to us, because who are we going to write to? Not Benny Shumway, because we can’t trust him; not Ricky Wurmtoter, because if I know Judy, he’ll be arriving down here himself any minute, and besides, I’m not a hundred per cent sure he can read. You got any suggestions? Because I haven’t.’
Not that Paul cared particularly. For the first time, he really and truly felt like he was dead; the affairs of the living seemed remote, distasteful and faintly ridiculous, like American politics. Soon, he knew, he’d have to make a tremendous effort to remember anything about his past life – and when you’re dead, even the slightest effort is rather hard to justify. So what if the Fey overw
helmed humanity? Wouldn’t make any difference down here, and probably it served them right, at that. Not his problem any more. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure he knew what Uncle Ernie was talking about—
‘Fine,’ Ernie snarled. ‘Go ahead, give up. Dissipate and fade away, see if I care. I mean, what’s it to you that now I can never go back, I’m stuck here just like you are. But so what? It’s just twenty years of my life I’ve flushed down the toilet for nothing.’
‘Go back?’ Paul repeated foggily. ‘Oh, right, yes, I forgot. You’ve got some blood of your own stashed away in your vault thing, haven’t you? So that’s all right.’
‘No, it bloody isn’t!’ Ernie snapped. ‘Because once the Fey have taken over, the last thing I’ll want to do is show my face Topside ever again. You should know by now, there’s stuff they can do to you that makes being stranded down here seem like a beach party with cake and coloured balloons. I might as well chuck it away, or trade it with Jacky Dao for a virtual Snickers bar. Like it matters, anyhow,’ he added sharply, ‘compared with the inevitable extinction of the human species. Though I don’t know why I’m worrying about it. I mean, it’s not me the entire population of Earth’s going to be pissed off with when they start arriving here by the billion.’ From some hidden place in the air he produced a handful of ash and shook it out like a tablecloth; it became a sheet of white paper, on which he began to write. ‘About the only one I can think of is Cas Suslowicz, and he’s not even human, he’s a frigging giant. Still, he owes me enough favours, he might just be inclined to help out. All he’s got to do is collect a sleeping female and stick her head under the cold tap or something.’ He stopped writing and looked up. ‘Where exactly did you stash her?’ he went on. ‘I was able to follow you as far as the closed-file store, but it’s shielded in there, I couldn’t see.’
‘I think Benny called it the weapons locker.’
‘Shit!’ Uncle Ernie winced as though he’d burnt himself, then hurled the chalk into the darkness. ‘And let me guess: Ricky’s got one key, you had the other. Oh, that does it, I give up. Nothing can get in there without the key, it’s practically the securest place in the universe.’ He crouched down on the illusion of a floor and curled up in a small, desperate heap. ‘All that effort, all that work, all that aggravation I had to go through in order to get your revolting parents to fall in love, and what do I end up with? You. And you’re dead,’ he added viciously. ‘Which means I’m stuck with you, for bloody ever. Oh, if it wasn’t so totally miserable, I’d burst out laughing.’
It was at this point that Paul decided he’d had enough. He’d got past horror and despair some time ago; anger not long after that; detachment and not caring any more had been harder to shake off, but even they had worked loose and fallen away in the face of the monumental wave of irritation that was gradually building up inside him. It was time, he resolved, that he took the situation in hand, before it got too messy to bear. How he was going to do it he had no idea, but he knew he’d find a way, because—
Because?
Because, he realised in a blinding, contraflow-on-the-roadto-Damascus revelation, I’m not what he says I am. I’m not stupid, I’m not useless, this isn’t my fault, it’s not fair and I’m not standing for it. So there.
‘Uncle,’ Paul said.
Uncle Ernie looked at him as though he’d just found him stuck to the sole of his shoe. ‘What?’
‘I think I’d like to get out of here now.’
Uncle Ernie stared at him, then shook his head; on top of all that, not drivel as well, his expression seemed to say.
‘No, really,’ Paul said. ‘If I go back, maybe I’ll be in time to stop Judy finding where Sophie’s hidden. I’ve got the key, and I’ll do whatever it takes to wake her up, and that’ll be that taken care of. Won’t it?’
Ernie just laughed. ‘Whatever you say, son,’ he muttered wearily, ‘whatever you say. Do whatever you like. I think I’ll just carry on being dead for a bit, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘If you like,’ Paul replied. ‘Only, how can I find Mr Dao?’
Ernie didn’t answer; he didn’t have to. Mr Dao was standing in front of the bead curtain, bowing very slightly. ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’
A small, tight grin crossed Paul’s face. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘it’s a bit of a mix-up. Someone killed me, thinking that I still had that blood from my nosebleed. Really, I shouldn’t be here.’
Mr Dao sighed softly. ‘Alas,’ he said.
‘Quite,’ Paul said. ‘But I was wondering. Maybe there’s something we can do to, well, put it right.’
‘I would be fascinated to hear your suggestions,’ Mr Dao said politely. ‘Although I have to say, I wouldn’t recommend optimism at this time.’
Paul ignored that. ‘Uncle Ernie’s blood,’ he said. ‘The little bottle he’s got in his box in there. I was wondering—’ He paused to take a deep breath, then realised he couldn’t. ‘I was wondering if I could use it instead. Only,’ he went on, as Mr Dao pursed his lips as though saying that of course you’d need a whole new gearbox, ‘since Uncle and I are related – well, obviously we are – doesn’t that mean that the same blood runs in our veins, or practically the same blood, or quite similar blood, anyhow? Carpenter blood, anyway. I mean, it works with marrow transplants,’ he added hopefully, as the initial brilliance of the idea began to ebb rapidly, like a winter sunset. ‘Only, I really do have to get back and save my girlfriend, you see. If it was just me, I wouldn’t—’
‘Hey!’ Uncle Ernie had, apparently, snapped out of his cocoon of despondency. ‘That’s my blood you’re talking about, you thieving little toad. That’s my life—’
‘Yes, Uncle,’ Paul said pleasantly, ‘but like you said just now, it’s no good to you any more, is it? If Judy takes over, which she will if I don’t get back there very soon indeed, you wouldn’t be able to use it anyway, it’d just go to waste, and you’d be no better off. You do see that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but—’ Uncle Ernie was scowling, as if he was trying to crack an invisible walnut using his eyebrows alone. ‘But if you take that, I’ll be dead. Like, really dead.’
Mr Dao cleared his throat softly. ‘I should point out, Ernest, that—’
‘Shut it, you. No, Paul, listen, I need that blood, I can’t stay here. I never meant to stay, you know, it was just something I had to do, for the sake of the mission. That’s why I made sure I had a way out; otherwise I’d never ever have—’
Paul was looking at Ernie, calmly, with deep and refreshing contempt. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you would. But things have changed, and you’ve got a choice: stay dead, or stay dead but help save a few lives in the process. Up to you,’ he added. ‘No pressure.’
Ernie looked at Paul, then back at the cold, solemn eyes of Mr Dao. ‘You’re bastards, both of you,’ he said. ‘He goes and screws everything up, and I’m the one who’s got to die because of it. That’s just so—’
Mr Dao coughed gently. ‘Life was unfair, Ernest,’ he said. ‘Did you really expect death would be any different?’
‘Oh, piss off,’ Ernie replied. ‘You can’t make me do it, either of you. I’m not a hero. It’s wrong. It’d be murder.’
The slightest of sighs passed Mr Dao’s translucent lips. ‘No,’ he said, ‘merely creative accounting. I should point out, for instance, that your account with the bank has been open for nearly one hundred terrestrial years, and in that time you would not appear to have paid any bank charges.’
‘What? But that’s—’
‘In addition to which,’ Mr Dao went on, ‘there are administration fees, storage charges, facilitation and expedition costs, plus interest and penalties. The Bank is entirely within its rights to press for settlement of these outstanding items at any time.’ He raised his closed left hand, then opened the fingers a little. Between them, Paul could see a small glass bottle with a splash of something red at the bottom. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘t
he Bank might see its way to waiving all outstanding liabilities, in recognition of your outstanding courage and self-sacrifice for the sake of your entire species. As acting assistant deputy general manager, I do have that discretion. But not,’ he added briskly, ‘if you keep whining and swearing at me. Do you understand?’
The ensuing silence seemed to last for ever. ‘Right,’ Ernie snapped suddenly. ‘Fine, have it your way. It’s all a complete waste of time, though. It won’t do any good. I mean, look at him, my fucking useless great-nephew there. Save the world, him? He couldn’t even save bottle tops.’
Mr Dao turned away from him, and slowly reached out his left hand towards Paul. When he received it, the glass bottle felt burning hot – because of the minuscule amount of heat left in the blood, he supposed. ‘Thanks,’ he said to Mr Dao. ‘That was—’
‘Business,’ Mr Dao interrupted. ‘No human race would mean no more dead, and no more living to send money and valuables. The effect on the Bank’s trade would be catastrophic. Purely business, you see.’
Paul nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Wish me luck.’
Mr Dao’s face folded into a look of profound sadness. ‘I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, Mr Carpenter, but there is no such thing as luck. There are coincidences, and humans naturally seek to find some vestige of a pattern in the random vicissitudes of events, since they cannot face the grim reality that nothing is preordained, there is no plan, no grand design, no—’
‘Mr Dao,’ Paul interrupted. ‘Wish me luck.’
‘Good luck, kiddo,’ said Mr Dao. Then he reached over and flicked the stopper out of the little glass bottle.
It was getting so that the walk back from the Bank to the door leading to the cashier’s office was practically routine; an alarming thought in itself. If I do this a few more times, Paul told himself, I’ll probably count as a commuter. Interesting thought; with property prices in London the way they were, and all this open, empty space—
