May Contain Traces of Magic

Author:Tom Holt
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Humour, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781841495057
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2009-08-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Hello,’ Chris replied.

‘Thanks for driving me home,’ she said. ‘Would you like to come in for a coffee?’

Said the spider to the fly. He was still holding the tape-measure.

‘Sorry about the music’ she said. ‘It’s probably the worst song ever released, even including James Blunt. That’s why I chose it, of course.’

Not making a great deal of sense, he thought, though he couldn’t fault her taste in music. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he said, still not looking round.

‘I’m SatNav,’ she replied. ‘As you know perfectiy well. Look, if you’re upset about me driving us here—’

Upset. Marvellous choice of words. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And stay away from me.’

‘You don’t know where I’ve been?’ It was the voice that did it, of course; either because it was pitched exactly right to dig down deep into the male libido, or because he was conditioned to do what it told him. Both. Whatever. He turned his head and looked at her.

‘Do you trust me?’ she said.

At last, a question he could answer. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘But only as far as I could throw you.’

She smiled. ‘That’s far enough,’ she said. ‘Come on, I won’t eat you.’

Or, Chris thought, I could try and make a fight of it. With this exceptionally powerful magical weapon, so powerful it’s illegal, so sharp it cut Honest John’s head off with one fumble. Even a novice like himself could probably put up a pretty good fight With a weapon like that, maybe chop off her arms or cut her in two right down the middle. Or he could put it away, now, before he did any more damage with it.

‘Thanks for getting me out of there,’ she said. ‘You’ve got no idea what it’s been like, cooped up in that thing.’

‘Got you out,’ he repeated; and then he remembered what Jill had told him, about the containment spells, and how the casing was a prison, absolutely secure, that nothing could break out of or into. Except, of course, a pantacopt.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I see.’

‘Come and have a coffee,’ she said, with a smile he could really have done without. ‘And I’ll explain.’

The other magic word. Well, he thought. At the back of his mind was some fairy tale or other, where the wicked witch could only get you into her lair if you agreed to go; maybe she couldn’t kill him if he stayed in the car, something like that. Supernatural rules of engagement were profoundly weird, so he understood, and as complex and Byzantine as tax statutes or EU directives. And Jill had warned him about her, and he trusted her—

‘I sent the hummingbird,’ she said. ‘Does that make any difference?’

It was no good, he had to ask. ‘Why a hum—?’

‘I said I’d explain,’ she replied. ‘If you come with me. Milk, no sugar, right?’

There were lots of fairy stories and folk tales about gullible men who met unscheduled beautiful girls, of course; men who went to sleep in enchanted castles and woke up twenty years later on cold hillsides, or who were never seen again, always something nasty, never anything nice.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.