May Contain Traces of Magic

by Tom Holt

  “You’re really, really sure?”

  “Yes, for crying out loud.”

  “Oh,” Jill said, “right. In that case, it’s a mystery. Look, about the car, and Norman’s clothes...”

  You had to hand it to Jill when it came to making arrangements. She’d spoken to Mr Burnoz personally—he’d sounded very impressed when he found out who he was talking to—and of course Chris mustn’t dream of coming back to work until after the weekend. Gerald from the department would call round in the morning to bring back his car and pick up the BMW and the designer clothes, and there’d be a statement for him to sign; just routine, nothing heavy.

  “Oh, and one last thing,” she said, sounding rather too much like Lieutenant Colombo for Chris’s liking. “That packet of biscuits.”

  “What pack—”

  “In my carrier bag, you remember. Don’t suppose you’ve had any further thoughts about that, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Only...” Hesitation; very unlike her. “Only, that’s another mystery, and I hate them. Oh well, never mind. See you Tuesday, as usual?”

  Fine, Chris thought, as he put the phone down and carried it back into the hall, but that wasn’t what she’d started to say. Only, he’d be prepared to bet money on it, had been the preamble to an explanation of why the stupid biscuits mattered so much, and she’d started and then changed her mind. Why? Because she didn’t trust him? Out of the question, after all these years; except, of course, that he’d been lying to her, and he had a nasty suspicion that she knew it. For two pins he’d have called her back and told her about the demon and SatNav. But he didn’t.

  Something was bugging him, and he couldn’t quite reach it; something that someone had said, some very little thing, perhaps the way it had been said rather than the words themselves. Chris got undressed and went to bed, but he couldn’t stop rummaging around in his mind; until, quite suddenly—

  He saw it, as clearly as if his eyes were open; the demon’s long, thin arm seen in the rear-view mirror, coming at him, going past, brushing his cheek (only how could he have seen it? He’d had his eyes shut at the time. Maybe this wasn’t his memory—) and the clawed finger reaching out to touch; and then the voice of the SatNav—

  “Your route is being calculated, please—oh.”

  The last bit: of course. At the time, he’d assumed it was just perfectly normal surprise, but it hadn’t been, had it? Not “oh” short for “Oh my God, what’s happening?” because the inflections were all wrong. Surprise, yes, but too mild to be any sentient creature’s reaction to waking up and finding a demon leering at you. Rather, it was, “Oh, it’s you, what’re you doing here?” implying—

  —Implying, Chris thought, his stomach lurching, that she recognised it. She’d met it before, knew its name, if demons had names; knew where it should have been, hence the surprise to find that it wasn’t.

  He opened his eyes. Faint orange glow from the street lamp outside, bleeding through a crack between the curtains. Once your eyes had got used to it, you could make out shapes, the door, the fitted wardrobes from Homebase, Karen’s dressing table. That was why the demon hadn’t attacked him, because of SatNav—

  No, that didn’t work either. It had appeared—if he’d understood what Jill had told him, it took them a lot of effort to do that, moving from one dimension to another or something Star Trek—sounding like that—and it had grinned at him, and men it had switched on SatNav, and then it had left. SatNav had recognised it, sure, but it hadn’t stopped to talk to her or anything like that. Grin, reach out, press button, bugger off. Still didn’t make any sense; in fact, it was even more bewildering than it had been.

  Jill must’ve guessed, Chris thought; she must’ve known there was something weird going on, hence the phone call. Well, obviously he was going to have to tell her now, because there was no way he’d be able to keep something as crazy as that bottled up inside his head. He felt as though someone had stuck a hose in his ear and turned on the tap.

  He had one of those luminous-dial watches; three a.m., so even Jill would be asleep, and he couldn’t phone her till morning. But the pressure kept building, until he couldn’t bear to lie still; he slid out of bed, crept into the living room, quietly closed the door and turned on the light.

  The Book, he thought; tells you what you really need to know. Chris didn’t really believe that, just a sales pitch for the buyers, but it was all he could think of, and he had to do something. He pulled the Book towards him across the table, opened it in the middle, and saw—

  Gandhi; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, born 2 October 1869, Porbandar, India. Best known for his policy of non-violent resistance to British colonial rule, leading to independence in—

  For crying out loud, Chris thought, and went back to bed.

  He was tied to a rock on the summit of a cloud-capped mountain} and around him soared four vultures, bare-necked, broad-winged, screaming as they swooped at his face, talons extended, veering away a fraction of a second before making contact. At each swoop he flinched, but they judged the distance exactly; he could feel the slipstream, but the anticipated impact and tearing of flesh never came.

  One of the vultures was Karen. “It’s your turn to put the rubbish out,” she screamed. “You broke the tile in the kitchen and you never talk to me any more.” He wasn’t all that bothered about her. The second vulture was Jill, and she was shrieking, “You lied to me, you did eat my biscuits, I’m going to shave off all your hair and tell them you were hiding in the girls’ toilets.” He was sad to think that she didn’t like him any more, but he recognised it was his own silly fault for violating her private, personal plastic bag, so fair enough. The third vulture was Angela the trainee, and although she swooped and wheeled like the others, he could see that her heart wasn’t in it and she was bored and it was just stupid, flying around in circles like this, but her mother was making her do it and it was all so bitterly unfair. The fourth vulture was Julie on reception, same as usual.

  But then (and this had never happened before) a fifth vulture joined the flock, a huge black silhouette with an enormous wingspan; not a vulture, a—what’s the word?—condor, like on the nature programmes; it didn’t have a face, but as it rushed towards him—and he knew it wasn’t going to turn away at the last moment like the others did, it was going to strike, and take half his face away with it—he heard it call out, “Your immediate future is being calculated, please wait...”

  He woke up; and the voice wasn’t that of a giant condor, it was the phone ringing. Beside him, Karen snarled ominously in her sleep, so he slid out of bed and tiptoed at the double into the hall.

  “Sorry to call so early,” Jill said, “but I thought you ought to know. Your SatNav.”

  Chris frowned. “What about it?”

  “It’s escaped.”

  Three, maybe four times in Chris’s life when he’d gone from three-quarters asleep to very wide awake in under a sixtieth of a second: once when Karen’s parents had come home much earlier than expected, once when he’d started to drop off at the wheel on the M5; none of them had been much fun, and this time was no different. “What the hell do you mean, es—?”

  “They just called me,” Jill said. “They prised open the casing, and it was empty. Nothing there.”

  Chris opened and shut his mouth a few times, goldfish fashion, then said; “But that can’t happen, can it? I mean, there’s all those spells and—”

  “Well, apparently it has,” Jill said calmly. “And, strictly between ourselves, it’s not the first time.”

  “Oh.”

  “Most of the previous cases were on the early models,” she went on, “before they beefed up the defences, but there was one in Denmark just last year, a Kawaguchiya RoadImp. Killed six people before they managed to catch up with it.”

  “Oh.”

  “The thing is,” Jill went on, “in nearly all the recorded incidents, the first thing the escaped thingy did was make a beeline for its owner.
In fact, they think that’s what prompts them to break out: they get sort of fixated on the person they navigate for. Kind of like having a crush on someone, but also wanting to tear them limb from limb. Well, if they were well-balanced and normal, they wouldn’t have been banged up in a plastic box to start with.”

  “Oh,” Chris said, this time with extra feeling. “And you think—”

  “There’s no need to panic,” Jill said chirpily. “Your car was in the secure compound all the time, we’ve got loads of wards and stuff, it’s highly unlikely it’ll be able to get off site. But I thought I ought to warn you, just in case.”

  “Um,” he said. “I mean, right, thanks for telling me.” Pause; then, “If it does, you know, show up here, what should I—?”

  “Phone me,” she said, “or the hotline, if I’m not here. You’ve got my mobile number, haven’t you?”

  “Is that all? I mean, is there anything I can do while I’m waiting for you to get here?”

  “Tackle it yourself, you mean?” Disapproval in her voice. “I really wouldn’t advise that. Leave it to us, all right?” Jill paused, then added, “It all seems to be happening to you at the moment, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Odd, that.”

  “Yes.”

  Another pause. “And you’re absolutely sure there’s nothing you aren’t telling me?”

  It was the perfect opportunity; and it was so obviously the sensible thing to do, because it was quite clear she suspected something, so Chris had nothing to gain by keeping quiets and if the horrible monster from inside SatNav really was on the loose and out to hunt him down, surely it was only common sense to tell Jill so she could help protect him. But he said, “Look, you keep asking me that. If there was anything at all, I’d tell you, right?”

  “Yes, of course you would, I’m sorry. It’s just such a coincidence, that’s all. Mind you, we do have a couple of lines we’re following up; like, for example, there’s some thing, some object you’ve inadvertently got hold of, and it’s drawing them.”

  He liked the sound of that. “Really? That happens, does it?”

  “It’s not unknown. Could be some powerful magical artefact that they’re keen to get their hands on, for example. Or maybe it’s something they’ve made into a sanctuary—that’s where they take some everyday thing and create a transdimensional bubble where they can hole up and rest; you know, a bit like a—”

  “Pocket universe,” Chris interrupted breathlessly. “I know all about them, we sell them. I’ve got a dozen in my car boot right now. Or at least, you’ve got them,” he added quickly. “And, bloody hell, what about the BB27Ks? Could they hide in one of them?”

  “I don’t know. What’s a BB27K?”

  “Portable parking space. Look, I’m no expert, but I think it works more or less the same way as the pocket universes, some dimension thing. And I carry loads of them as car stock, I’ve been trying to get rid of them all month, but you can’t hardly give the things away.”

  “It’s possible,” Jill said sceptically. “Though I wouldn’t have thought—”

  “There was that woman,” Chris went on. “One of the managers told me about her. Parked her car in a BB27K and it fell through a hole into a completely different reality. Sounds just like what you were talking about, and they wouldn’t have to adapt it or anything—it’d be perfect.”

  “All right,” she said, “we’ll check them out, just in case. I suppose it could be something like that—I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any other rational explanation.”

  After she’d rung off, Chris crept back into the bedroom and fished the tape-measure out of his pocket. Phone me. Leave it to us. Yes, right; and while he was holding and pressing 1 and listening to the ‘Four Seasons’, the ravening monster would be tearing off his head, just like poor Mr Newsome’s.

  Well; he was a realist. So most likely the monster would get him, even if he did try and make a fight of it; that, or he’d cut off his own leg trying to get the tape-measure out in a hurry. But at least he’d have stood a chance, if only very briefly. Better that his last moments on Earth should be characterised by futile valour than spent trying to explain about escaped fiends to someone in a call centre in Mumbai. Not much better, but still.

  Chris made himself a cup of coffee (black, no sugar; more suitable, he felt, for a warrior than his usual milky-sweet slop) and went through into the living room, trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing today. Karen had given him his orders for the weekend—something about stripping off wallpaper—but demons and fugitive monsters had driven them from his mind. He shuddered. Right now, if he was lost in a dark wood and a fiery angel appeared to him and gave him the choice between a life of heroism, adventure, selfless sacrifice and eternal glory on the one hand, and DIY and visiting Karen’s relatives on the other, his only question would be whether there’d be time to nip into Focus on the way over to Cousin Brenda’s. But that’s the bummer with life. You don’t get to make the important choices at a convenient time.

  So true. Admittedly he’d chosen to hide in the girls’ toilets (seemed like a good idea), but without knowing what the consequences of the act would be. At that crucial moment, when a fiery angel would’ve been a tremendous help rather than a health and safety issue, he’d been on his own, with nothing but the puerile blandishments of Benny Pickering to inform his decision. If only—

  Someone was ringing the doorbell. The postman, Chris told himself, or the Argos courier or the Avon lady; well, if they insisted on ringing at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning, they’d have to put up with the spectacle of him in his pyjamas. He lumbered into the hall and opened the door.

  “Oh,” he said.

  Hadn’t meant it to sound like that; but that was how it sounded, and he had an idea that there were very few people on the planet more capable of distinguishing subtle, if unintentional, nuances of disappointment and irritation.

  “Hello,” said Angela the trainee. “I’m disturbing you, aren’t I?”

  One of the reasons why the truth is so unpopular is that it can be so bloody inconvenient. “No,” he therefore said, “not a bit, come in. Only, please keep your voice down, my, um, partner’s still asleep.”

  A crash from the kitchen gave him the lie in his teeth. “Actually,” Chris said, “if you wouldn’t mind just waiting there a second, I’d better just tell her you’re here. She might be—”

  He tailed off. She was thinking walking about without any clothes on, whereas he hadn’t said a bit snotty otherwise just in case she overheard. He three-quarters closed the door in Angela’s face and limped into the kitchen.

  “Oh,” Karen said, “you’re up.”

  He nodded. “Look,” he said quickly, trying to sound ever so everyday about it, like he habitually interviewed work colleagues early on Saturday mornings in his pyjamas. “It’s a real nuisance, but someone from work’s just turned up, must be important or—”

  She shrugged, as if to say that nothing he did could revolt or disappoint her any more. “Fine,” she said. “You’d better take him through into the lounge. Of course, the place is a complete disgusting tip, but he’ll just have to put up with it.”

  Chris neglected to point out the basic flaw in her assumptions. Angela always muttered, so with any luck Karen wouldn’t hear her and realise she was a she. He wasn’t quite sure why it mattered, but his instincts, finely honed as those of a small vulnerable forest creature, told him it probably did. “Right,” he said. “I’ll—”

  “And if he wants coffee it’ll have to be that crappy instant muck you bought, because there isn’t anything else.”

  “OK. That’s fine.”

  Not a chance in hell that Angela would accept a coffee from him, in any case. She’d regard it as fraternising with the enemy, the sort of thing women had their hair cut off for after the liberation of Paris. For the record, he was desperate for a coffee, but he’d just have to wait.

  Chris nipped back into the hall a
nd opened the door. Angela was still there, looking awkward and unwanted at him. “Sorry about that,” he said with a slightly crazed smile. “Come on through.”

  “You’re still in your pyjamas,” she said.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Can I get you anything? Coffee?”

  She gave him a look, as though he’d just demanded her firstborn child. “No, thanks,” she said. “Look, I know I’m messing up your weekend, but Mr Burnoz said I had to come over. I’d have rung first, but I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  The logic of the young. Quite possibly his mind had worked that way once, though he couldn’t remember any specific instances. “It’s no bother,” he said. “So, what’s—?”

  She was huddled in the armchair, looking down at her hands. “Mr Burnoz said he’s being hassled by the demon-control authorities,” she said. “Apparently they rang him at home—they need us both for questioning, about that poor man at the shop. He told them he’d had a call from them earlier saying you were a nervous wreck and suffering from post-traumatic stress, and they said they didn’t know anything about that; so he called my mother and said he wanted me to go round to your place first thing in the morning, and then we could both go to their office and answer their questions; only if you were really at death’s door, I was to call him back and he’d explain to them.” She looked up and frowned at him. “He said something about ‘the second incident’, whatever that means. Do you know what he meant?”

  Chris nodded. “One of them got into my car yesterday,” he said.

  Her eyes became very large and round. “What, a—?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s awful. What did it do?”

  He shrugged, the self-effacing hero. “I looked in my mirror and there it was, on the back seat. Then it grinned at me, kicked the door open and jumped out. And that was all, basically.”

  “But that’s—” She’d been about to say that’s really unusual or something of the sort. “Bad enough,” she said. “Did they catch it?”