Odds and Gods (29 page)

‘Oh, let’s keep it short and sweet,’ Osiris replied. ‘Just so long as we get there in the end.’

‘You’re the boss.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh good.’

Ba’al turned to the computer console on the desk in front of him and tapped precisely four keys. ‘Cup of tea while we’re waiting?’

‘That would be nice, thank you.’

‘Milk and sugar?’

‘Just milk, thanks.’

Ten minutes exactly later, the door opened and a minor demon came in with a silver tray, on which rested a small rectangular slip of paper. Ba’al picked it up, glanced at it and handed it over.

‘Bearer bond,’ he said. ‘Best way, we always find.’

Osiris looked down at the paper. It was heavy paper, apparently composed of five per cent wood-pulp, ninety-five per cent watermarks, and the printing made his eyes hurt. In among all the squiggles, he could make out Gothic lettering, as follows:

Seventy-five dollars?’

Ba’al nodded. ‘We caught the market at its absolute crest,’ he said contentedly. ‘I mean, in financial terms you’re holding the ultimate Doomsday device, because there just isn’t enough real money in the cosmos to cover it. Just wave it under a bank teller’s nose and
kerbang!
there goes the economy of the solar system down the pan.’

‘I see.’ Osiris scratched his head, making a noise like fingernails on a blackboard. ‘The, um, Hell dollar’s pretty strong at the moment, then?’

There was a peculiar noise; Ba’al sniggering. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said. ‘I must remember that. Anyway, as I was saying, it doesn’t actually matter so long as the money never leaves the system. I mean, it can be capitalised and written off over the years, there shouldn’t be a problem. Well, very nice doing business with you.’

Osiris gripped the handrails of his chair. ‘Likewise,’ he said. ‘And no, er, hard feelings?’

‘Hard feelings?’ Ba’al looked at him. ‘About what?’

‘About you and your friends being locked up here for the last—’

‘Oh that.’ Ba’al shrugged. ‘I should think this makes up for it, don’t you? I mean, our commission on this deal’s a fiftieth of a per cent, so we aren’t grumbling, are we? I think we can say that leaves us quits.’

‘Oh good. And now of course,’ Osiris added, ‘you’re free to go.’

‘Yes.’ Ba’al hesitated. ‘I suppose so, quite. Actually,’ he went on, looking slightly to one side, ‘we’ve been thinking about that.’

‘So I gathered.’

‘No, not like that.’ Ba’al bit his lip. ‘About whether we should in fact leave or alternatively, well, stay.’

‘
Stay?
’

‘The thought did cross our minds, yes,’ Ba’al replied sheepishly. ‘Because of being offshore, you see.’

‘Offshore?’

‘Sort of offshore. Being in a different dimension, you see, it means we can offer our clients a distinct tax advantage. ’

‘You can?’

‘We believe so, yes. On the basis of, if we don’t exist, then how can we pay tax?’

Osiris rubbed his chin. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s a sort of specious logic there, I suppose. But surely—’

‘It was Mammon’s idea,’ Ba’al continued. ‘Ever since he got out of human sacrifice and into financial services there’s been no holding him. No, I think we’ll stay as we are, thank you all the same.’

‘Fair enough.’ Osiris folded the paper carefully and put it away in his top pocket. ‘I’ll be saying goodbye for now, then. Thanks again.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ Ba’al said. ‘Any time. Oh, and could you lower the walls again when you leave?’

‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ Osiris replied.

 

In his office, Julian leant back in his chair and scowled.

Things, he felt, were getting out of hand; and that always annoyed him. In his view, a perfect universe was one where he had everything firmly in hand, preferably with his thumb jammed hard against its windpipe. At present, however, things were far from perfect.

The latest update on the Teletext showed a colossal rise in share prices, fed by rumours of a massive input of some huge but unspecified quantity of wealth from an uncertain source. Added to this he had in front of him the latest report from his medical advisers, which wasn’t exactly hopeful. The clowns had lost him. Again. This time, apparently, on Easter Island, which was in itself peculiar. Until now, Julian wasn’t aware that there was anything you could lose on Easter Island, no matter how hard you tried.

And what exactly was the old fool up to? That was the question he kept coming back to, and still he couldn’t fathom it. Was he just running aimlessly away? In which case he was going about it in a distinctly peculiar manner. True, he had so far succeeded amazingly well; but that could be explained away entirely in terms of the complete and utter brainlessness of his chosen contractors. Osiris was up to something. But what?

What would I do if I was in his position?

Well, said Julian to himself as he absent-mindedly flicked through the franchise agreement on the desk in front of him, here adding a few noughts, there crossing out a paragraph, if I were in his shoes I’d find myself a bloody good lawyer, ha ha.

A bloody good lawyer . . .

But . . .

Surely not.

Suddenly, with the depressing inevitability of a car approaching at ninety miles an hour when you’ve just got your heel stuck in a grating as you cross the road, Julian could feel the pieces clicking smartly into place. The running about. The ducking and diving. The sudden pressing need for fabulously vast sums of money. All entirely consistent with going to consult a lawyer.

But who?

Not just a good lawyer, he mused, but the best. And there is only ever one best at a time; not that the post falls vacant very often. Ever since the legal profession began, there had only ever been one best. So far as he was aware - and if the situation had changed he’d have heard, just as the news of the end of the world would have filtered through to him somehow - the best was still the best; reclusive, all but retired from practice, but still occasionally coming out of retirement to kick the spines of young pretenders up through their ears. When it came to putting on the writs, there was only one master.

And if Osiris has gone to see him, Julian reflected, then it’s time for a drastic change of approach. Like now.

He picked up the phone.

‘Get me those two idiots,’ he said.

‘A
nd what,’ said Teutates, the warrior god of the ancient Celts, ‘the hell is this supposed to be?’

‘Rice pudding.’

Bearing in mind their unlimited power and total lack of accountability, gods are generally extremely tolerant. You can burn their temples, rape their priestesses, massacre their suppliants in the sanctuary of their holy altars, with no worse consequences than a slight upward movement of the all-seeing eyebrow. But there are limits. Gods are, after all, only human.

‘Go on, eat it up,’ continued the waitress. ‘You like rice pudding.’

Still waters run deep; the only visible reaction from Teutates was a slight crinkling of his brow. ‘You reckon?’ he said.

‘Look, it’s getting cold and I’ve got all the rest of the dinners to do. You don’t want me to have to get Mrs Henderson.’

Like soldiers in riots, war gods are obliged to go through certain set procedures before letting rip. Procedure one: try calm, conciliatory negotiation.

‘No,’Teutates snarled, ‘you look, you raddled old boiler. Either you take this pigswill away and bring me a bloody great hunk of Stilton and a box of Ritz crackers, or tonight you go home in a matchbox. Kapisch?’

This, by divine standards, is calm, conciliatory negotiation verging on wimpishness. The waitress tutted.

‘Don’t you use that tone of voice with me,’ she replied sniffily, ‘or I’ll tell Mrs . . .’

Procedure two: fair warning. ‘Okay, prune-face, go ahead and try it. I can’t turn you into a frog because by the looks of you someone’s beaten me to it, but I’m sure I’ll think of something else just as appropriate.’

‘That does it. Mrs Henderson!’

Procedure three: there is no procedure three.

‘Mrs Henderson,’ said the waitress, ‘Mr Teutates is being very rude to me and he won’t eat up his nice keekeekeekeekeekeekee. ’

It was, in all fairness, pretty slickly done and Mrs Henderson, who had seen many such phenomena over the years, couldn’t quite manage to keep the overtones of grudging admiration out of her voice.

‘Thank you, Mr Teutates,’ she nevertheless said, ‘that’ll be quite enough of that, thank you very much. Now, would you please turn Mrs Hill back into her proper shape before you put the other residents off their food.’

Teutates grinned. ‘That is her proper shape,’ he replied. ‘Stands to reason. I’ve said it a hundred times, Mrs Hill’s really a polecat turned into a human and it’s high time someone turned her back. Ask anybody.’

‘Mr Teutates . . .’

‘I’m not blaming you. Must be really difficult getting staff on the wages you pay. Still, like they say, if you pay peanuts you must expect to employ monkeys. That,’ he added darkly, ‘can also be arranged.’

‘That will do.’ Mrs Henderson drew her eyebrows together, creating a formation fully as intimidating as an advancing battalion of the Imperial Guard. ‘Now I’ve warned you about this before, and . . .’

She stopped, struggling to regain her balance. The force of the attack, the sheer malevolence, had taken her by surprise.

‘Mr
Teutates
!’

It had been a long time - oh, over forty years - since one of her residents had tried to turn her into something, and never in all her experience in the residential care business had anyone ever tried to metamorphose her into one of
those
. Quite obviously there was something going on here.

Something that had to be sorted out. Just for now, though, best to play it cool.

‘Really, Mr Teutates, you know better than that.’ She folded her arms and gave Teutates the Number One cold stare. ‘Honestly, I’d have thought you’d have more sense, at your age.’

Teutates nodded curtly, admitting that she had a point. Quite understandably given the nature of her position, Mrs Henderson was hexed about with enough protective charms, amulets, written undertakings and runes of power to withstand a direct hit from an atomic bomb. Low voltage transmigration spells bounced off her like tennis balls off a dreadnought.

‘I do not,’ Teutates said slowly, ‘like rice pudding. Understood?’

‘Now, then,’ said Mrs Henderson, shaken but firm, ‘of course you like rice pudding. It’s good for you.’

Teutates glowered at her. ‘Listen, missus,’ he growled. ‘In the beginning I created the Heavens and the Earth out of the curds left at the bottom of the churn of Eternity. Singlehanded I subdued the Wolves of Famine, the Three-headed Dragon of Pestilence and the Wild Dogs of Death. I can count the stars in the sky, the sands on the seashore and the days that are past. Stands to reason I can make up my own mind whether I like rice pudding or not. And I don’t. You got that, or shall I write it down for you?’

‘Oh.’ Mrs Henderson hesitated. There was definitely something here she didn’t understand; she could sense it, and it disturbed her. ‘Then why didn’t you say so before, you silly man?’ she rallied bravely.

‘I did.’

‘Be that as it may,’ Mrs Henderson said, ‘that’s no reason why poor Mrs Hill should have to be a polecat. I must insist that you turn her back at once.’

Teutates considered his options. On the one hand he was a war god, and he hadn’t felt this good in nineteen centuries. On the other hand, he had to go on living here, because he had nowhere else to go; and one of the first rules you learn when you’re a war god is, Don’t take work home with you.

‘Do a deal,’ he said. ‘No more rice pudding ever again and the polecat walks.’

There was a pause.

‘Certainly,’ said Mrs Henderson, putting a smile on her face with the same ease as one spreads butter still rock-hard from the fridge on to newly baked bread. ‘You only had to ask, you know. We always bend over backwards to make life as pleasant as possible for all our residents.’

As she escorted the newly restored Mrs Hill back to the staff room for a nice lie down and a slice or two of raw liver (there’s always a brief period of readjustment after a metamorphosis) Mrs Henderson came to a firm conclusion.

Something was badly wrong, and she didn’t know what.

Something would have to be done about that.