turned their wands on me, I hit the deck, and two change beams hit each other head-on. The resulting clash of probabilities was too much for local causality to bear, and both Eamonns vanished, as probability decided they'd never been given the bloody wands in the first place.
The universe does like to keep itself tidy, whenever possible.
Cathy rose cautiously up from behind the desk, which now seemed to be made of an entirely different kind of wood, and after checking that everything really was all clear, she hauled Eamonn 40 up beside her. His eyes were stretched so wide it had to be painful, and he was visibly shaking. Cathy eased him into a chair, patted him comfortingly on the head in an absent-minded sort of way, and winced as she looked round my haphazardly transmuted office.
"It's going to take forever to get everything looking nice again. Though I do like the new poster. And I know I'm going to have to go through every damned folder to check that the contents haven't been changed. John, I want whoever is responsible for this nonsense strung up by the balls!
If I have to work late, I want someone to suffer! Who the hell would be dumb enough to equip complete amateurs with change magics?"
"Good question," I said. "There must be more to our new client than meets the eye."
"Wouldn't be difficult," Cathy sniffed. A thought struck her, and she considered the still-dazed Eamonn 40. "I don't know if we can really class him as a client, boss. He couldn't afford our rates, these days. I mean, look at him."
"Someone sent all these Eamonns into my life, to mess up my day," I said. "That makes it personal."
Cathy rolled her eyes dramatically. She got away with it because she was a teenager, but only just. "So, it's another freebie, is it? The money you got from the Vatican won't last forever, you know. Not with the rent we're paying on this place. You need to take on some proper-paying cases, and soon. Before someone large and professionally unpleasant turns up here to cut off your credit with a meat-axe."
"My creditors can take a number," I said. "I've got far more powerful people mad at me, at the moment. I think... I'll take Eamonn to Strangefellows. If nothing else, it should prove safer territory."
"Strangefellows?" Cathy said dubiously. "Given the shape he's in, I'm not sure he's ready to cope with that much weirdness in one dose."
"Sink or swim," I said briskly. "I've always believed in shock treatment for someone in shock. Take a look round while I'm gone and see how much actual damage the wands did. Keep anything that's been improved and throw out the rest. Are we insured?"
Cathy gave me a hard look. "What do you think?"
"I think I need several large drinks, followed by a really large drink as a chaser. Come along, Eamonn, we are going to pay a visit to the oldest bar in the world."
"Oh, I don't drink much any more," said Eamonn 40.
"Why am I not surprised? We're going anyway. I have a strong feeling that even more alternate versions of you will be turning up soon, and I'd rather they made a mess of someone else's place." I paused and looked about me. "Cathy ... didn't you once tell me we had an office cat?"
She shrugged. "The future computers ate it. It wasn't a very good cat anyway."
I took Eamonn 40 by the arm and ushered him firmly towards the door. Some conversations you just know aren't going to go anywhere good.
Three
Oblivion
Strangefellows is the oldest bar in the world, and not for the faint-hearted. You find it up a back alley that isn't always there, under a small neon sign with the bar's name in Sanskrit. The bar's owner doesn't believe in advertising. If you need to find the place, you will, though whether that's a good or bad thing is open to debate. I hang out there from time to time, mostly because it's full of people with even worse problems than mine, so no-one bothers me. Strange-fellows is a seedy place, bordering on sleazy, with good booze, bad service, and really distressing bar snacks. The atmosphere is unhealthy, the mood is changeable, and most of the furniture is nailed to the floor so it can't be used in hand-to-hand combat. I've always felt right at home there. The bar's current owner, Alex Morrisey, did experiment
with going up-market, but it didn't take. You can