Thieving Fear (32 page)

It raised its tattered scrawny arms and ducked its collapsed head towards her face. This was almost enough to send her backwards, which would indeed drive her into the circle. A last flare of instinct made her dodge towards the wall. The figure shuffled swiftly after her, dropping into a crouch from which it might spring on her, throwing her to the floor, where it would begin by lowering its jagged hollow absence of a face towards her. Was this a nightmare it was sending her? She sensed dreadful glee at the prospect of unimaginably worse, and her loathing made her lash out. She hardly knew what she'd done until she felt the spade hack through bone or gristle and saw a shoe and its withered contents left behind.

The lopsided figure hobbled at her with blind determination. When she drove the spade through the other ankle, reducing her pursuer to her own height, it kept coming on its stumps. As it jerked out its shrivelled hands to grapple with the spade she jabbed at its ribs with all her strength, splintering them. The instant it toppled backwards she was on it, tramping on the blade to sever the arms. As the torso struggled like a segment of a worm to elude her, she smashed the skull like a hatched egg. Too much of the body continued to move, not only because of the wild antics of the dim light, even after she'd leaned all her weight on the spade to chop the crawling fragments smaller.

In the end it was disgust with the process that made her give up. As she turned towards the steps she heard a restless scrabbling at the bricks. Surely she'd done as much as she could by herself. 'Ellen,' she called in a voice that hardly seemed capable of escaping the cellar. 'Hugh.' She'd retrieved the flashlight, but it didn't work. Only the muffled glow of the phone lit her way as she stepped into the circle, and the steps weren't visible at all.

'Have you finished your new one yet, Ellen?'

'I might have if I hadn't had to come to London.'

'Hey, no panic. Take the time you need. Just don't kill him off at the end. You don't want to keep a good magician down.'

'He wasn't good.'

'I don't think Glen meant it that way, Hugh.'

'You got it. Good as in marketable. From what you sent me I'd say he's your best character. Don't waste him, especially not now.'

'He wasn't just a character.'

'He's mine now, I suppose, Hugh. I can do what I like with him.'

'Which could mean a lot of money if you keep him alive for a series.'

'Why especially now, Glen?'

'I just heard about a television series they're making. Matter of fact, it's the guys who own us. Frugo are getting into movies for the big screen and the small one too.'

'Some of us.'

'Sorry, Rory, we know nobody owns you. Pity you're not still working for them, Hugh. Maybe you could have pushed Ellen's books.'

'I'll be helping. That's why I'm here.'

'That right? Tell me how.'

'Didn't Ellen say? I'm working in a bookshop now. Texts near Frugo where I used to be.'

'Found your way back there, did you? That could be useful. We'll talk.'

'What kind of television series?'

'One your books could tie in with, pick up on, anyway. It's going to be big and controversial.
Psychic Challenge
, they're calling it. Each show has two magicians going up against each other like they did when that stuff was new.'

'Not real magicians. Not like Pendemon.'

'You bet, Hugh. At least that real. No point otherwise.'

'I can't see what point there is anyway.'

'Same one your cousin's books have.'

'What are you making out that is?'

'If she was my cousin I'd say it was earning a living, Rory. I guess they aren't harming your bank balance either.'

'I only did the covers because it's Ellen.'

'Fine since it got them talked about, and we're looking at having you show us some ideas for another of our authors. On top of which we definitely want you doing more for our Pendemon books.'

'There's only one of those yet. What are you asking me for?'

'Now you're taking photographs it's a pity you can't go in his house.'

'Don't look at us. We didn't wreck it even if I thought we should.'

'OK, Hugh, nobody's blaming anyone. I guess we'll never find out who got in there with the gasoline. It might have been good if you hadn't told anybody what was there till we had a chance to film it, though. Even with your mobiles would have been useful.'

'We had other things on our minds.'

'I said I wasn't blaming anyone. You can tell Rory how it was down there, yes? We're figuring on using illustrations in the first book of the series to see how they work. The more they look like photographs the better. Work your magic, Rory. Bring it to life like Ellen is.'

'What do you think, Ellen? It's your book.'

'I'm sure Glen knows what's best for me.'

'That's why I'm here. Tell you what else we'd like – more author photographs.'

'Isn't the one Rory took enough?'

'You put on weight since then. Hey, no bad thing. We don't need the author looking like a ghost even on your sort of book. Maybe he can take some shots after we've all had lunch.'

'Does Charlotte know about the things you're asking me to do? Isn't she still Ellen's editor?'

'Sure thing. I'm just trying to help their books along. Makes sense for all of us.'

'What's keeping her? Shouldn't she be here by now?'

'She was finishing something off downstairs. I guess it's taking longer than she thought. She could catch us up at the restaurant if you're famished, Ellen.'

'No, I want to wait for her. We shouldn't leave her on her own.'

'She isn't, believe me, not down there.'

'Shall I go and find her?'

'You can't do that, Hugh.'

'Why not? Why are you telling him that, Glen?'

'Because nobody gets to go behind the scenes by themselves unless they're part of us, not just your brother. Here comes the elevator. Maybe that's her now.'

'Gee,' Rory said, having turned to watch that letter rob its neighbour of the light. It continued to glow, if somewhat fitfully, as the metal doors parted below the display. The inside of the lift seemed dim, perhaps by contrast with the street, where the window of a taxi caught the sunlight, flaring in his eyes. The blank patch it left on his vision appeared to loiter behind Charlotte as she stepped into the lobby, so that he couldn't immediately tell whether somebody was at her back. No, the gaping gloom was deserted, and in a moment the doors shut before the light shifted to the lowest number. Rory rested his hands on the upholstery to push himself off the settee, so fast that the blank patch engulfed his vision. He mustn't start imagining that it had wiped out Hugh and their cousins or the editor, let alone the place Rory had taken ages to reach. 'Now we're all here,' he said.

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