From a Drood to a Kill - Simon R. Green Page 0,120

important, but all of them known faces on the scene. Where I had occasionally wondered Whatever happened to . . . ?

I heard someone coming. I whipped the golden filaments out of the computer, armoured down, and settled myself comfortably in the visitor’s chair again. Looking innocent. Or at least as innocent as Shaman Bond could be expected to look.

A smooth salesman type came in, a cheerful young fellow, already prematurely balding, wearing a smart blue blazer over white slacks. With an Old School Tie from a very minor public school. Of course, that didn’t mean as much as it used to, not when you can find anything on eBay these days. The new arrival seemed very businesslike, all tanned and plausible, and he went out of his way to give me his most polished professional smile. I stood up just long enough to have my hand gripped in a brief professional handshake (quick and hearty and utterly uninvolved), and then we both sat down on either side of the desk, facing each other.

“Hello, Shaman!” he said cheerfully. “I am David Perrin, at your service. So pleased to meet you at last. I know your reputation, of course, but I never thought we’d ever actually meet in person. We do move in such different circles, after all!” He smiled again, to show that this was a joke, but he couldn’t quite keep the superiority out of his tone. I just stared back at him, and he moved quickly on. “Your reputation does rather precede you, Shaman, so I trust you’ll understand when I say I need to see the Merlin Glass for myself. Right here and now, in person. In the flesh, so to speak. Before we can go any further.”

I just nodded, reached into my coat pocket, and took out the Glass. I’d known they would insist on seeing it for themselves at some point, so before I even approached the Travel Bureau I removed the Merlin Glass from my pocket dimension. It wouldn’t do for anyone here to discover that Shaman Bond owned something like a pocket dimension. Questions would be asked . . . So I carefully wrapped the Glass in the cloth Jack had provided. (I’d hung on to the cloth, on the grounds that the old Armourer wouldn’t have chosen just any old cloth to wrap the Merlin Glass in. That it would be bound to have some useful properties . . .) And then I slipped the Glass into my coat pocket, and just hoped the Travel Bureau’s protections wouldn’t go ape-shit if they detected it.

David Perrin watched my every movement with hot and eager eyes, until I finally placed the silver-backed hand mirror on the desk between us. I was careful to handle the Merlin Glass as though I was very respectful, and not a little scared, of the thing. As Shaman Bond would be. (Hoping all the while that the bloody Glass wouldn’t play up again.) Perrin was actually breathing hard by the time I’d finished, his fingers twitching visibly. But he still had enough self-control, and enough self-preservation instincts left, not to touch the Glass himself. He just sat there and stared at it for a long moment; and then an old-fashioned eyepiece, like a jeweller’s loupe, suddenly appeared in his hand from out of nowhere. It jumped up into the air and screwed itself firmly into Perrin’s left eye socket, where it glowed a whole series of unnatural colours as he studied the Merlin Glass through the lens. Perrin leaned forward over the table, positioning his face right over the Glass until his nose was almost touching it. He examined the hand mirror from end to end, still careful to keep his hands well away; and even more careful not to look at his own face in the mirror’s reflection. Eventually, the eyepiece stopped glowing. Perrin slowly straightened up again, his back creaking loudly as he sat back in his chair. The loupe dropped out of his eye socket, fell down, and disappeared in mid-air. Neither of us mentioned it; we were, after all, professionals. There was a faint sheen of sweat on Perrin’s face. He looked . . . concerned, but determined.

“It is the real thing,” he said, his voice just a little strained. “And we do very definitely want it. How the hell did you get hold of a really powerful piece like this, Shaman?”

“It was an accident!” I said loudly. “I just happened to be somewhere, and