In Your Dreams (3 page)

He paused again, clearly waiting for a response. Paul, who had a feeling that he didn't really have a choice in the matter, mumbled, ‘Yes, lovely, thanks,' or words to that effect.

‘Great,' said Mr Wurmtoter. ‘The thing of it is, though, I'm going to be away on a job with Jack – Mr Wells Senior

– and it's likely to take quite some time. While I'm away, Benny here'll be looking after things for me, and so you'll be working with him. Is that going to be OK?'

Like he could say no, with Mr Shumway sitting next to him. ‘Sure,' he muttered.

Mr Wurmtoter smiled. ‘That's fantastic,' he said. ‘The fact is, Benny knows the pest business inside out, don't you, Ben?'

Mr Shumway nodded; exceptional economy of movement.

‘Actually,' Mr Wurmtoter continued, ‘if there was any justice, he'd be the PC partner here instead of me. But—'

‘But I retired,' Mr Shumway interrupted. ‘While I still had something to retire with.' He shifted slightly in his chair until he was staring into Paul's eyes through his extremely thick-lensed glasses. ‘What Rick hasn't told you is that pest control is dangerous, as in death or horrible injuries. Also, you've got to kill things. Strikes me you might not want to do that.'

‘Well,' Paul said, once he'd got his voice back, ‘no, not really. I don't think I've ever killed anything on purpose,' he added, ‘not even spiders or things like that. Usually I try and catch them and—' He tailed off. Although, obviously, he didn't want to be seconded to the dragon-slaying department for six months, he didn't want to give the impression that he was totally pathetic and feeble, even if it was true. ‘I don't know,' he confessed. ‘What do you think?'

Mr Wurmtoter was smiling again. ‘Well,' he said, ‘here's where Benny and I agree to differ. Benny reckons that pest controllers are born, not trained, and you need to have the old killer instinct if you're going to make the grade. I can see his point, but I've always felt that anybody who wants to do this job is probably too crazy to be allowed to do it, if you see what I mean. After all, it's not like treating wood-worm or putting down mousetraps. The sort of pests you'll be up against are highly intelligent sentient life forms; if dragons and harpies and frost-giants were allowed to go to university, you wouldn't be able to stick your head out the door in Oxford or Cambridge without getting it bitten off. Which is why,' he went on, ‘a gung-ho attitude – no offence, Ben – isn't a survival trait in this area. A healthy instinct for staying alive and an ability to sense and assess danger is what you need, together with the ability to get on and do the job when the claws are out and the flames are licking round your toes, even though you're so scared you can hardly breathe – because, take it from me, doesn't matter how brave you are, when you're on the warm end of twelve tons of angry dragon, that's how scared you'll be. Better to have someone who knows he'll be scared right from the start, rather than a guy to whom absolute terror comes as a nasty shock. Do you see what I mean?'

Paul's mouth had suddenly gone dry. ‘Um,' he said.

‘And I think,' Mr Wurmtoter said, glancing at Mr Shumway and then looking back, ‘I think that after the way you handled Humph Wells and a really bad situation, I think you've probably got what it takes. Of course,' he added casually, ‘if you really feel you aren't cut out for the job, that's perfectly fine. I'll have a word with Judy di Castel'Bianco, and you can go and do your stint with her, and Sophie can come in with Benny and me.'

Shit
, Paul thought; and it occurred to him at that moment that Ricky Wurmtoter probably was very good at his job. At least he had the knack of laying a good trap. ‘No, that's fine,' he heard himself croak. ‘When do I start?'

Benny Shumway walked with Paul back to the office that Paul shared with Sophie. Benny didn't say anything for a while; then he stopped dead, just outside the closed file store. ‘You probably got the impression I don't want you working for me,' he said abruptly. ‘Right?'

‘Well ...'

‘Right.' Benny Shumway grinned. ‘But no hard feelings,' he said. ‘Ricky was an arsehole, springing that or-else bit on you. He knows that you two can't just tell JWW where to stick their rotten jobs, for fear of what Dennis Tanner'll do to the both of you for breach of contract; he needs someone to help mind the store while he's off gallivanting for three months, he doesn't want your girlfriend because he's got a really unreconstructed view of what women should and shouldn't do in the workplace, so you're it, by default. All that I-think-you-got-what-it-takes stuff was just flannel.' He sighed. ‘That's Ricky for you. Of all selfish bastards, a selfish bastard who likes to be liked is probably the worst. Never mind, though,' he added, reaching up and slapping Paul on the back with spine-jarring force. ‘You'll be all right, I guess. At least,' he added, with a slight edge to his voice, ‘you will by the time I'm through with you.'

‘Um, thanks,' Paul said nervously. ‘How do you mean?'

‘You'll see,' replied Benny Shumway, grinning. ‘Right, about you, let's see. Do you work out at all?'

It took Paul a moment to figure out what he was talking about. ‘Well, no,' he admitted.

‘I see. Done any martial arts? Judo, karate, tae kwon do?'

‘No.'

‘Basic weapons skills? Fencing, ken-jutsu, marksmanship training? How are you with high explosives?'

‘Um.'

Benny's grin was threatening to unzip his face. ‘Poisons?' he asked. ‘Wilderness survival techniques?'

‘Not really,' Paul said.

‘That's all right, then.' Benny Shumway beamed up at him. ‘One thing I can't stand is a bloody know-it-all. How about doing exactly what you're told? You any great shakes at that?'

‘Oh yes,' Paul said confidently. ‘I've been doing that all my life.'

‘Perfect,' Benny said. ‘In that case, there's a fair chance that you might get through this without me having to send you home to your family in a matchbox. Finish up what you're doing, we'll make a start on training you first thing tomorrow.' Suddenly, without warning, he stuck out his hand for Paul to shake. ‘Welcome to heroism.'

Paul looked at him. ‘Excuse me?'

‘That's the other name for pest control, fighting monsters, what we do. We're your actual heroes.'

Paul studied him for a moment, then thought of the reflection that he'd seen in the window the previous evening. ‘Are we?' he said. ‘Oh, jolly good.'

‘He's a dwarf,' Sophie explained, as they worked through the last of the Mortensen printouts (apparently meaningless computer spreadsheets that had to be sorted by date order).

‘Well, yes,' Paul said. ‘At least, he's a bit on the short side, but I wouldn't go as far as—'

‘No,' she interrupted, ‘a
dwarf
. You know; the ones who live in caves under mountains. Fearless warriors, skilled craftspeople, really into gold and wealth and stuff. Don't you ever read books?'

‘But—' Paul started to say; and then he thought,
Fearless warrior, well, yes; don't know about skilled craftsperson, but he's the cashier, so I guess that figures.
‘Oh,' he said. ‘Oh, right. How did you—?'

Sophie scowled impatiently at him. ‘Well,' she said, ‘it's obvious, surely. I mean, you
have
read the office procedures manual, haven't you?'

Oh
, Paul thought,
that
. ‘Yes,' he lied. He'd been meaning to, of course, ever since they'd come to work one morning and found two copies of it on their shared desk: two enormous calf-bound, breeze-block-thick volumes, four thousand pages crammed with tiny, intimidating print. Two days afterwards, Paul had surreptitiously weighed his copy on the post-room scales: four and a half kilos, whatever that was in real money. He was planning to get around to reading it any day now.

‘Well, then,' Sophie said. ‘Anyway.' She looked past him, at the far wall. ‘Is that what you want to do?' she asked. ‘Hunt monsters, kill dragons, that sort of thing?'

Paul thought for a whole fifty-thousandth of a second before answering, ‘No, of course not. It sounds horrible and dangerous. But I don't think I've got a choice.'

Sophie nodded. ‘You could always refuse,' she said. ‘I mean, stand up for yourself, just tell them straight, you won't do it.'

‘You think they'll listen?'

‘No.'

‘Nor me.'

‘But it's so—' She glared at him, as though being the victim was his fault. ‘I mean, why can't they find someone else to do their silly work for them? Why's it got to be you?'

But it doesn't have to be me
, Paul didn't say;
they could make you do it instead. Which is why
— Instead, he said: ‘It won't be so bad. I got the impression that most of it's just boring and tedious, anyhow – not actually dangerous. I mean, they don't charge around waving swords and dressed in armour any more.'

‘Don't they? How would you know?'

‘I don't,' Paul admitted. ‘But it stands to reason, doesn't it? I mean, technology's moved on, hasn't it? Benny Shumway was talking about explosives and poisons—'

‘And other really safe things to be around,' Sophie said. ‘And besides, it's
wrong
. These are
endangered species
that you're talking about exterminating. You've just got to look at that Ricky Wurmtoter creep to see what sort of a man he is. Probably got a dragon's-foot umbrella stand in his office. I mean, what harm did a dragon ever do you?'

‘None,' Paul said.
Yet
, he thought. ‘Look, there's no point giving me a hard time about it, it's the last thing I want to do. Or rather,' he added, scowling, ‘the last thing but one. The
last
thing I want to do is give Mr Tanner an excuse to do horrible things to me for breach of contract. Or had you forgotten—?'

‘No, of course not,' Sophie said quickly. ‘But even if he did, it wouldn't
kill
you. And you wouldn't be killing harmless dragons, either. I really think you've got to be firm this time. Take a stand.'

‘Sophie—'

There were all sorts of things he could say; all sorts of things, just crying out to be said – how it was all very well for her, she wasn't the one who'd been volunteered to fight bloody dragons, she was going to spend the next three months learning about the Entertainments Sector, probably going to film premières and swanning about at drinks parties round swimming pools meeting the stars. Also, what exactly would she do, if she'd been the one to draw the short straw? Also, why the hell did she think he was giving in so tamely, if not because if he refused she'd be forced to do it, and then she'd be the one who'd get blown up or eaten by dragons? It showed how much he'd learned in the last six months, even without reading the office-procedures manual, that he didn't say any of these things, or anything at all.

‘What?' she demanded.

‘Nothing.'

Sophie gave him a scowl that would've stripped barnacles off the underside of an oil rig, and went back to sorting through Mortensen printouts. Paul did the same, vaguely aware that World War Three had been postponed at the last moment.
Our first fight
, he thought, but it didn't make him feel any happier about it.

Usually they went out for lunch, to the small Italian sandwich bar round the corner where she'd once bought him an epoch-making ham roll. But today she had a meeting with Judy di Castel'Bianco, to learn more about what she'd be doing; it would probably last all afternoon, and she'd see him back at the flat. Fine, he thought; with Sophie in that kind of mood, it'd probably be just as well. He spent the lunch hour and the rest of the day shuffling spreadsheets, and was about to call it a day (twenty-five past five; everybody was required to be off the premises by five-thirty, because of the goblins) when Ricky Wurmtoter came in.

He came in without knocking, which was unusual in itself. Also he looked ruffled, almost worried. He had a suitcase, and Paul noticed that he wasn't wearing his claw pendant.

‘Paul,' he said, ‘sorry to bother you. I've got a favour to ask.'

‘Sure,' Paul answered nervously.

‘Would it be all right—' Ricky Wurmtoter, mumbling? Never in a million years. ‘Look,' he said, and if it'd been anybody else, Paul would have thought
furtive
or even
guilty about something.
‘I don't like to ask, but could I borrow that door thing of yours? You know, that thing you used to get into the place where Humph Wells marooned those two clerks?'

What surprised Paul most of all was that Ricky Wurmtoter was
asking
. Ever since Paul had chanced upon the Acme Portable Door, a thin plastic sheet that, when pressed against a wall, turned into a door that opened onto anywhere or anywhen you wanted it to, he'd been expecting at any moment to be yelled at for misappropriating it and ordered to give it back immediately. He'd found it, after all, in a desk drawer; by no stretch of the imagination could it be described as
his
, and since it was clearly a rare and valuable piece of equipment, he was amazed that nobody had noticed it was missing. He'd finally reached the conclusion that no one (apart from himself, Sophie, Mr Tanner's mother and the firm's senior partner) knew that it was him who'd got it. But apparently Mr Wurmtoter knew too, and here he was asking nicely.

‘Um,' Paul said.

‘I'll let you have it back just as soon as I've finished with it,' Mr Wurmtoter went on – totally weird, he was practically pleading. ‘Only, it just might make all the difference for this job I've got to do; and, well, the sooner I get the job done and get back here, the sooner you'll be taken off pest-control duty and put in with Caz Suslowicz or Theo van Spee or somebody. How about it?'