Free The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde Page B

within twenty-four hours; a rare pair of Lesser-spotted Bworks were shot and stuffed by a passing hunter, and the land is now used for farming.
    I stared into the empty Dragonlands, then at the people who were still arriving, following the call of cash as if in some deep-rooted herding instinct. The milk of human kindness was turning sour.

Patrick and the Childcatcher
    ----
    Tiger Prawns was in the lobby when I got back, and I asked him why he wasn’t manning the telephone as he had been told.
    ‘Very funny,’ he said.
    ‘I see you’ve met Patrick of Ludlow,’ I replied, trying to stifle a giggle, for Tiger was thirty feet up in the shabby atrium, perched high upon the chandelier. ‘How long have you been up there?’
    ‘Half an hour,’ he answered crossly, ‘with only a lot of dust and Transient Moose for company.’
    ‘You’ll have to suffer a few jokes in good humour,’ I told him, ‘and consider yourself lucky that you have witnessed both passive and active levitation in the same week.’
    ‘Which was which?’
    ‘Carpeteering is active ; heavy lifting is passive . Could you feel the difference?’
    He crossed his arms and sulked.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Did your fillings ache when he lifted you?’
    ‘I don’t have any fillings,’ he replied grumpily.
    ‘They would if you did,’ I said as I walked off towards the Kazam offices. ‘I’ll ask Patrick to get you down.’
    Our heavy lifter was eating biscuits in the Avon Suite when I arrived. Patrick of Ludlow was a year shy of his fortieth birthday, and was amiable, a little simple and quite odd looking: like most sorcerers who made their living using passive levitation, he had muscles mainly where he shouldn’t – that is to say, grouped around his ankles, wrists, toes, fingers and the back of his head.
    ‘How did the clamping removals go?’ I asked.
    ‘Eight, Miss Jennifer, which brings my score to four thousand, seven hundred and four. The most popular car colour for people who don’t care where they park is silver; the least popular, black.’
    ‘Was it Wizard Moobin who told you to put Tiger up there?’
    I knew he wouldn’t have done it on his own.
    ‘Yes, Miss Jennifer. Was that wrong of me?’
    ‘No, it was just a joke. But get him down now, yes?’
    He waved his hand in the direction of the lobby, and a minute or two later Tiger walked back into the office with a scowl etched upon his forehead.
    ‘Patrick, this is Tiger Prawns. Tiger is the seventh foundling, here to help me run the place. Tiger, this is Patrick of Ludlow, our heavy lifter, who was told to put you up there by a wizard or wizards unknown, and is thus blameless. You will be friends and not hold a grudge.’
    Patrick jumped up politely, said how happy he was to meet him and thrust out a hand for him to shake. Tiger blinked. The hand looked like a joint of boiled ham with fingertips poking out of the end, and I watched to see what Tiger would do faced with an appendage so misshapen. To his credit, he didn’t flinch and instead held one of the fingertips and shook his hand. The lack of any reticence pleased Patrick, who grinned broadly – although he’d come to terms with the way he looked, he’d never really got used to it.
    ‘Sorry about putting you up there,’ he said.
    ‘No problem,’ replied Tiger, who had become more cheery now he knew the prank wasn’t malicious. ‘The view was very pleasant. How do you hold things with hands like that?’
    ‘I don’t need to,’ replied Patrick, and demonstrated by raising his tea to his lips by thought power alone.
    ‘Useful,’ said Tiger. ‘Who was the person on the other chandelier?’
    ‘What?’
    Tiger repeated himself and I went out to the lobby to check. Tiger had been right, and when I saw who it was, I had to bite my lip to avoid giggling.
    ‘Patrick,’ I shouted down the corridor, ‘would you let the Childcatcher down, please?’
    Patrick reluctantly let the man down, but not so lightly as he had Tiger, and