diners poured out into the hal .
Susan sighed again and went down the cel ar stairs, while Twyla sat demurely at the
top, hugging her knees.
A door opened and shut.
There was a short period of silence and then a terrifying scream. One woman fainted
and a man dropped his cigar.
‘You don’t have to worry, everything wil be al right,’ said Twyla calmly. ‘She always
wins. Everything wil be al right.’
There were thuds and clangs, and then a whirring noise, and final y a sort of
bubbling.
Susan pushed open the door. The poker was bent at right angles. There was
nervous applause.
‘Ver’ wel done,’ said a guest. ‘Ver’ persykological. Clever idea, that, bendin’ the
poker. And I expect you’re not afraid any more, eh, little girl?’
‘No,’ said Twyla
‘ Ver’ persykological.’
‘Susan says don’t get afraid, get angry,’ said Twyla.
‘Er, thank you, Susan,’ said Mrs Gaiter, now a trembling bouquet of nerves. ‘And, er,
now, Sir Geoffrey, if you’d al like to come back into the parlour – I mean, the drawing
room-‘
The party went back up the hal . The last thing Susan heard before the door shut
was ‘Dashed convincin’, the way she bent the poker like that-‘
She waited.
‘Have they al gone, Twyla?’
‘Yes, Susan.’
‘Good.’ Susan went back into the cel ar and emerged towing something large and
hairy with eight legs. She managed to haul it up the steps and down the other passage
to the back yard, where she kicked it out. It would evaporate before dawn.
‘That’s what we do to monsters,’ she said.
Twyla watched careful y.
‘And now it’s bed for you, my girl,’ said Susan, picking her up.
‘C’n I have the poker in my room for the night?’
‘Al right.’
‘It only kil s monsters, doesn’t it…?’ the child said sleepily, as Susan carried her
upstairs.
‘That’s right,’ Susan said. ‘Al kinds.’
She put the girl to bed next to her brother and leaned the poker against the toy
cupboard.
The poker was made of some cheap metal with a brass knob on the end. She would,
Susan reflected, give quite a lot to be able to use it on the children’s previous
governess.
‘G’night.’
‘Goodnight.’
She went back to her own smal bedroom and got back into bed, watching the
curtains suspiciously.
It would be nice to think she’d imagined it. It would also be stupid to think that, too.
But she’d been nearly normal for two years now, making her own way in the real world,
never remembering the future at al …
Perhaps she had just dreamed things (but even dreams could be real…).
She tried to ignore the long thread of wax that suggested the candle had, just for a
few seconds, streamed in the wind.
As Susan sought sleep, Lord Downey sat in his study catching up on the paperwork.
Lord Downey was an assassin. Or, rather, an Assassin. The capital letter was
important. It separated those curs who went around murdering people for money from
the gentlemen who were occasional y consulted by other gentlemen who wished to
have removed, for a consideration, any inconvenient razorblades from the candyfloss
of life.
The members of the Guild of Assassins considered themselves cultured men who
enjoyed good music and food and literature. And they knew the value of human life. To
a penny, in many cases.
Lord Downey’s study was oak-panel ed and wel carpeted. The furniture was very old
and quite worn, but the wear was the wear that comes only when very good furniture is
careful y used over several centuries. It was matured furniture.
A log fire burned in the grate. In front of it a couple of dogs were sleeping in the
tangled way of large hairy dogs everywhere.
Apart from the occasional doggy snore or the crackle of a shifting log, there were no
other sounds but the scratching of Lord Downey’s pen and the ticking of the longcase
clock by the door … smal , private noises which only served to define the silence.
At least, this was the case until someone cleared their throat.
The sound suggested very clearly that the purpose of the exercise was not to erase
the presence of a troublesome bit of biscuit, but merely to indicate in the politest
possible way the presence of the throat.
Downey stopped writing but did not raise his head.
Then, after what appeared to be some consideration, he said in a businesslike voice,
‘The doors are locked. The windows are barred. The dogs do not appear to have
woken up. The squeaky floorboards haven’t. Other little arrangements which I wil not
specify seem to have been bypassed. That severely limits the possibilities. I real y
doubt that you are a ghost and gods general y do not announce themselves so politely.
You could, of course, be Death, but I don’t believe he bothers with such niceties and,
besides, I am feeling quite wel . Hmm!’
Something hovered in the air in front of his desk.
‘My teeth are in fine condition so you are unlikely to be the Tooth Fairy. I’ve always
found that a stiff brandy before bedtime quite does away with the need for the
Sandman. And, since I can carry a tune quite wel , I suspect I’m not likely to attract the
attention of Old Man Trouble. Hmm.’
The figure drifted a little nearer.
‘I suppose a gnome could get through a mousehole, but I have traps down,’ Downey
went on. ‘Bogeymen can walk through wal s but would be very loath to reveal
themselves. Real y, you have me at a loss. Hmm?’
And then he looked up.
A grey robe hung in the air. It appeared to be occupied, in that it had a shape,
although the occupant was not visible.
The prickly feeling crept over Downey that the occupant wasn’t invisible, merely not,
in any physical sense, there at al .
‘Good evening,’ he said.
The robe said, Good evening, Lord Downey.
His brain registered the words. His ears swore they hadn’t heard them.
But you did not become head of the Assassins’ Guild by taking fright easily. Besides,
the thing wasn’t frightening. It was, thought Downey, astonishingly dul . If monotonous
drabness could take on a shape, this would be the shape it would choose.
‘You appear to be a spectre,’ he said.
Our nature is not a matter for discussion, arrived in his head. We offer you a
commission.
‘You wish someone inhumed?’ said Downey.
Brought to an end.
Downey considered this. It was not as unusual as it appeared. There were
precedents. Anyone could buy the services of the Guild. Several zombies had, in the
past, employed the Guild to settle scores with their murderers. In fact the Guild, he
liked to think practised the ultimate democracy. You didn’t need intel igence, social
position, beauty or charm to hire it. You just needed money which, unlike the other
stuff, was available to everyone. Except for the poor, of course, but there was no
helping some people.
‘Brought to an end…’ That was an odd way of putting it.
‘We can-‘ he began.
The payment wil reflect the difficulty of the task.
‘Our scale of fees-‘
The payment wil be three mil ion dol ars.
Downey sat back. That was four times higher than any fee yet earned by any
member of the Guild, and that had been a special family rate, including overnight
guests.
‘No questions asked, I assume?’ he said, buying time.
No questions answered.
‘But does the suggested fee represent the difficulty involved? The client is heavily
guarded?’
Not guarded at al . But almost certainly impossible to delete with conventional
weapons.
Downey nodded. This was not necessarily a big problem, he said to himself. The
Guild had amassed quite a few unconventional weapons over the years. Delete? An
unusual way of putting it …
‘We like to know for whom we are working, he said.
We are sure you do.
‘I mean that we need to know your name. Or names. In strict client confidentiality, of
course. We have to write something down in our files.’
You may think of us as … the Auditors.
‘Real y? What is it you audit?’
Everything.
‘I think we need to know something about you.’
We are the people with three mil ion dol ars.
Downey took the point, although he didn’t like it. Three mil ion dol ars could buy a lot
of no questions.
‘Real y?’ he said. ‘In the circumstances, since you are a new client, I think we would
like payment in advance.’
As you wish. The gold is now in your vaults.
‘You mean that it wil shortly be in our vaults,’ said Downey.
No. It has always been in your vaults. We know this because we have just put it
there.
Downey watched the empty hood for a moment, and then without shifting his gaze