Lost in a Good Book

  'Bastard. It's like trying to snatch a trout from a mountain stream with a boxing glove. Never mind. I have a plan B which shouldn't fail.'

  'The metaphorical fox-terrier?'

  'Exactly so. Thursday, draw your weapon.'

  'Now what?'

  'Shoot me.'

  'Where?'

  'In the chest, head, anywhere fatal. Where did you think? In my foot?'

  'You're joking!'

  'Never been more serious.'

  'Then what?'

  'Good point. I should have explained that first.'

  He opened the holdall to reveal a vacuum cleaner.

  'Battery powered,' explained Spike. 'As soon as his spirit makes an appearance, suck him up.'

  'As simple as that?'

  'As simple as that. SEB containment isn't rocket science, Thursday – it's just not for the squeamish. Now, kill me.'

  'Spike!'

  'What?'

  'I can't do it!'

  'But you promised – and what's more you really promised.'

  'If I'd known that meant kill another SpecOps officer,' I replied in an exasperated tone, 'I wouldn't have gone along with it!'

  'SpecOps 17 work ain't no bed of roses, Thursday. I've had enough, and believe me, having this little nurk coiled up in my head is not as easy as it looks. I should never have let him in in the first place, but what's done is done. You have to kill me and kill me well.'

  'You're crazy!'

  'Undoubtedly. But look around you. You followed me in here. Who's crazier? The crazy or the crazy who follows him?'

  'Listen—' I began. 'What's that?'

  There was a thump on the church door.

  'Blast!' replied Spike. 'The undead. Not necessarily fatal and severely handicapped by that slow swagger – but they can be troublesome if you get cornered. After you have killed me and captured Chuckles up here you may have to shoot your way out. Take my keys; these two here are for the inner and outer gates. They're a bit stiff and you have to turn to the left—'

  'I get the picture.'

  Another thump echoed the first. There was a crash from the vestry and a shape moved past one of the lower windows.

  'They are gathering!' said Spike ominously. 'You'd better get a move on.'

  'I can't!'

  'You can, Thursday. I forgive you. It's been a good career. Did you know that out of the three hundred and twenty-nine SpecOps 17 operatives who have ever been, only two ever made it to retirement age?'

  'Do they tell you that when you join?'

  There was the sound of stone against stone as one of the headstones on the floor started to be pushed aside. The undead who was thumping on the door was joined by another – and then another. Outside we could hear the noises of the awakening. Despite the moonlit night, the Evil One was calling to his servants, and they were coming running – or shambling, at the very least.

  'Do it!' said Spike in a more urgent manner. 'Do it now before it's too late!'

  I raised my gun and pointed it at Spike.

  'DO IT!'

  I increased the pressure on the trigger as a shaky form stood up from the open grave behind him. I pointed the gun at the figure instead – the pathetic creature was so far dried out it could barely move, but it sensed our presence and teetered in our direction anyway.

  'Don't shoot it, shoot me!' said Spike with some alarm in his voice. 'The job in hand, Thursday, please!'

  I ignored him and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell harmlessly with a dull thock.

  'Eh?' I said, chambering the next round. Spike was quicker than I and loosed off a shot that disintegrated the abomination's head. It collapsed in a heap of dried skin and powdery bone. The sound of scrabbling from the door increased.

  'God damn and blast, Next, why couldn't you do as I told you?!'

  'What?'

  'I put that dud on the top of your clip, idiot!'

  'Why?'

  He tapped his head.

  'So I could trick Chuckles in here to come out – he's not going to stay in a host he thinks is about to croak! You pull the trigger, out he comes, dud bullet, Stoker lives, SEB sucked up – QED.'

  'Why didn't you tell me?' I asked, my temper rising.

  'You had to mean to kill me! He might be the personification of all that is evil within the heart of man, but he's no fool.'

  'Oops.'

  'Oops indeed, knucklehead! Right, we'd better be out of here!'

  'Isn't there a plan C?' I asked as we headed for the door.

  'Shit, no!' replied Spike as he fumbled with the key. 'B is as high as I ever get!'

  Another creature was rising from behind some upended tables that had once held a harvest festival display; I caught it before it was even upright. I turned back to Spike, who had the key in the lock and was muttering about how he wished he was working at Sommeworld™.

  'Stay away from the door, Spike.'

  He recognised the serious tone in my voice. He turned to face the barrel of my automatic.

  'Whoa! Careful, Thursday, that's the end that bites.'

  'It ends here and tonight, Spike.'

  'This is a joke, right?'

  'No joke, Spike. You're right. I have to kill you. It's the only way.'

  'Er, steady on, Thursday – aren't you taking this just a little bit too seriously?'

  'The Supreme Evil Being must be stopped, Spike – you said so yourself!'

  'I know I said that, but we can come back tomorrow with a plan C instead!'

  'There is no plan C, Spike. It ends now. Close your eyes.'

  'Wait!'

  'Close them!'

  He closed his eyes and I pulled the trigger and twitched my hand at the same time; the slug powered its way through three layers of clothing, grazed Spike's shoulder and buried itself in the wood of the old door. It did the trick; with a short and unearthly wail an entity emerged from Spike's nostrils and coalesced into an ethereal version of an old dishcloth.

  'Good work!' muttered Spike in a very uncertain voice as he took a step back. 'Don't let it get near you!'

  I ducked as the wraith-like sprit moved in my direction.

  'Fooled!' said a low voice. 'Fooled by a mere mortal, how utterly depressing!'

  The thumping had now increased and was also coming from the vestry door; I could see the hinge pins start to loosen in the powdery mortar.

  'Keep him talking!' yelled Spike as he grabbed the holdall and pulled out the vacuum cleaner.

  'A vacuum cleaner!' Sneered the low voice. 'Spike you insult me!'

  Spike didn't answer but instead unravelled the hose and switched the battery-powered appliance on.

  'A vacuum cleaner won't hold me!' sneered the voice again. 'Do you really believe that I can be trapped in a bag like so much dust?'

  Spike sucked up the small spirit in a trice.

  'He didn't seem that frightened of it,' I murmured as Spike fiddled with the machine's controls.

  'This isn't any vacuum cleaner, Thursday. James over at R&D dreamt it up for me. You see, unlike conventional vacuum cleaners, this one works on a dual cyclone principle that traps dust and evil spirits by powerful centrifugal force. Since there is no bag there is no loss of suction – you can use a lower wattage motor; there's a hose action – and a small brush for stair carpets.'

  'You find evil spirits in stair carpets?'

  'No, but my stair carpets need cleaning just the same as anyone else's.'

  I looked at the glass container and could see a small vestige of white spinning round very rapidly. Spike deftly placed the lid on the jar and detached it from the machine. He held it up and there inside was a very pissed-off spirit of the Evil One – well and truly trapped.

  'As I said,' went on Spike, 'it's not rocket science. You had me scared, though, I thought you really were going to kill me!'

  'That,' I replied, 'was plan D!'

  'Spike you you you Bastard!' said the small voice from inside the jar. 'You'll suffer the worst torments in hell for this!'
/>
  'Yeah, yeah,' replied Spike as he placed the jar in the holdall, 'you and all the rest.'

  He slung the bag round his body, replaced the spent cartridge in his shotgun with another from his pocket, and flicked off the safety.

  'Come on, those deadbeats are starting to get on my tits. Whoever nails the least is a sissypants.'

  We flung open the door to a bunch of very surprised dried corpses who fell inward in a large tangled mass of putrefied torsos and stick-like limbs. Spike opened fire first, and after we had dispatched that lot we dashed outside, dodged the slowest of the undead and cut down the others as we made our way to the gates.

  'The Cindy problem,' I said as the head of a long-dead carcass exploded in response to Spike's shotgun. 'Did you do as I suggested?'

  'Sure did,' replied Spike, letting fly at another walking corpse 'Stakes and crucifixes in the garage and all my back issues of Van Helsing's Gazette in the living room.'

  'Did she get the message?' I asked, surprising another walking corpse, which had been trying to stay out of the action behind a tombstone.

  'She didn't say anything,' he replied, decapitating two dried cadavers, 'but the funny thing is, I now find copies of Sniper magazine in the toilet – and a copy of Great Underworld Hit-men has appeared in the kitchen.'

  'Perhaps she's trying to tell you something?'

  'Yes,' agreed Spike, 'but what?'

  I bagged ten that night, but Spike only managed eight – so he was the sissypants. We partook of a haddock chowder with freshly baked bread at a roadside eatery and joked about the night's events while the SEB swore at us from his glass jar. I got my six hundred quid and my landlord didn't get Pickwick. All in all, it was a good evening well spent.

  24

  Performance-related pay, Miles Hawke & Norland Park

  * * *

  'Performance-related pay was the bane of SpecOps as much then as it is now. How can your work be assessed when your job is so extraordinarily varied? I would love to have seen Officer Stoker's review panel listen to what he got up to. It was no surprise to anyone that they rarely lasted more than twenty seconds and he was, as always, awarded an "A++" – "Exceptional service, monthly bonus recommended".'

  THURSDAY NEXT – A Life in SpecOps

  Dog tired, I slept well that night. I had expected to see Landen but dreamt of Humpty Dumpty, which was odd. I went into work, avoided Cordelia again and then had to take my turn with the employment review board, which was all part of the SpecOps work-related pay scheme. Victor would have given us all 'A++', but sadly it wasn't conducted by him – it was chaired by the area commander, Braxton Hicks.

  'Ah, Next!' he said jovially as I entered. 'Good to see you. Have a seat, won't you?'

  I thanked him and sat down. He looked at my performance file for the past few months and stroked his moustache thoughtfully.

  'How's your golf?'

  'I never took it up.'

  'Really?' he said with surprise. 'You sounded most keen when we first met.'

  'I've been busy.'

  'Quite, quite. Well, you've been with us three months and on the whole your performance seems to be excellent. That Jane Eyre malarkey was a remarkable achievement; it did SpecOps the power of good and showed those bean-counters in London that the Swindon office could hold its own.'

  'Thank you.'

  'No, really, I mean it. All this PR work you've been doing. The Network is very grateful to you and, more than that, I'm grateful to you. I could have been on the scrapheap if it wasn't for you. I'd really like to shake you by the hand and – I don't do this very often, y'know – put you up for membership of my golf club. Full membership, no less – the sort usually reserved for men.'

  'That's more than generous of you,' I said, getting up to leave.

  'Sit down, Next – that was just the friendly bit.'

  'There's more?'

  'Yes,' he replied, his smile fading. 'Despite all of that, your conduct over the past two weeks has been less than satisfactory. I've had a complaint from Mrs Hathaway34 to say that you failed to spot her forged copy of Cardenio.'

  'I told her it was a forgery in no uncertain terms.'

  'That's your story, Next. I haven't located your report on the matter.'

  'I didn't think it was worth the trouble to write one, sir.'

  'We have to keep on top of paperwork, Next. If the new legislation on SpecOps accountability comes into force we will be under severe scrutiny every time we take a step, so get used to it – and what's this about you hitting a Neanderthal?'

  'A misunderstanding.'

  'Hm. Is this also a misunderstanding?'

  He laid a police charge sheet on the desk.

  ' "Pemissioning a car to be driven by personn of low moral turpithtude." You lent your car to a lunatic driver, then helped her to escape the law – what on earth did you think you were doing?'

  'The greater good, sir.'

  'No such thing,' he barked back, handing me a SpecOps claim docket. 'Officer Tillen at Stores gave me this. It's your claim for a new Browning automatic.'

  I stared dumbly at the docket. My original Browning, the one I had looked after from first issue, had been left in a motorway services somewhere in a patch of Bad Time.

  'I take this very seriously, Next. It says here you "lost" SpecOps property in unsanctioned SO-12 work. Flagrant disregard for Network property makes me very angry, Next. There is our budget to think of, you know.'

  'I thought it would come down to that,' I murmured.

  'What did you say?'

  'I said: "I'll retrieve it eventually, sir".'

  'Maybe so. But lost property has to come under the monthly current expenditure and not the yearly resupply budget. We've been a little stretched recently. Your escapade with Jane Eyre was successful but not without cost. All things considered, I am sorry, but I will have to mark your performance as: "F" – "Definite room for improvement".'

  'An "F"? Sir, I must protest!'

  'Talk's over, Next. I'm truly sorry. This is quite out of my hands.'

  'Is this an SO-1 way of punishing me?' I asked. 'You know I've never had anything lower than an "A" in all my eight years with the service!'

  'Raising your voice does you no good at all, young lady,' replied Hicks in an even tone, wagging his finger as a man might do to his spaniel. 'This interview is over. I am truly, truly sorry, believe me.'

  I got up, mumbled a reply, saluted and made for the door.

  'Wait!' said Braxton. 'There's something else.'

  I returned.

  'Yes?'

  He handed over a packet of clothes in a polythene bundle.

  'The department is now sponsored by the Toast Marketing Board. You'll find a hat, T-shirt and jacket in this package. Wear them when you can and be prepared for some corporate entertainment.'

  'Sir!'

  'Don't complain. If you hadn't eaten that toast on The Adrian Lush Show they would never have contacted us. Over a million quid in funding – not to be sniffed at with people like you soaking up the funds. Shut the door on the way out, will you?'

  The morning's fun wasn't over. As I stepped out of Braxton's office I almost bumped into Flanker.

  'Ah!' he said. 'Next. A word with you, if you don't mind.'

  It wasn't a request – it was an order. I followed him into an empty interview room and he closed the door.

  'Seems to me you're in such deep shit your eyes will turn brown, Next.'

  'My eyes are already brown, Flanker.'

  'Then you're halfway there already. I'll come straight to the point. You earned six hundred pounds last night to pay back rent.'

  'And?'

  'The service takes a dim view of moonlighting.'

  'It was Stoker at SO-17,' I told him. 'I was deputised – all above board.'

  Flanker went quiet. His intelligence-gathering had obviously let him down badly.

  'Can I go?'

  Flanker sighed.

  'Listen here, Thursday,' he began
in a more moderate tone of voice, 'we need to know what your father is up to.'

  'What's the problem? Industrial action standing in the way of next week's cataclysmic event?'

  'Freelance navigators will sort it out, Next.'

  He was bluffing.

  'You have no more idea about the nature of the armageddon than Dad, me, Lavoisier, or anyone else, do you?'

  'Perhaps not,' replied Flanker, 'but we at SpecOps are far better suited to having no clue at all than you and that chronupt father of yours.'

  'Chronupt?' I said angrily, getting to my feet. 'My father? That's a joke! What is your golden boy Lavoisier doing eradicating my husband, then?'

  There was silence for a moment.

  'That's a very serious accusation,' observed Flanker. 'Have you any proof?'

  'Of course not; isn't that the point of eradication?'

  'I have known Lavoisier for longer than I would care to forget,' intoned Flanker gravely, 'and I have never had anything but the highest regard for his integrity. Making wild accusations isn't going to help your cause one iota.'

  I sat down again and sighed. Dad had been right. Accusing Lavoisier of any wrongdoing was pointless.

  'Can I go?'

  'I have nothing to hold you on, Next. But I'll find something. Every agent is on the make. It's just a question of digging deep enough.'

  'How did it go?' asked Bowden when I got back to the office.

  'I got an "F",' I muttered, sinking into my chair.

  'Flanker,' said Bowden, trying on his Eat More Toast cap. 'Has to be.'

  'How did the stand-up go?'

  'Very well, I think,' answered Bowden, dropping the cap in the bin. 'The audience seemed to find it very funny indeed. So much so that they want me to come back as a regular … What are you doing?'

  I hurriedly hid under the table, slithering to the floor as quickly as I could. I would have to trust Bowden's quick wits.

  'Hello!' said Miles Hawke. 'Has anyone seen Thursday?'

  'I think she's at her monthly assessment meeting,' replied Bowden, whose deadpan delivery was obviously as well suited to lying as it was to stand-up. 'Can I take a message?'

  'No. Just ask her to get in contact, if she could.'