Free Wish You Were Here by Tom Holt Page A

twenty-seven thousand of those notches were multiple hits on the driver of the mail truck. He’d also killed old Mr Tomacek, who drove the garbage truck along the valley road once a week, sixteen thousand and eight times, and Mrs Bernstein from Owl Farm nine thousand, six hundred and twenty-four times. The first time he’d shot Mrs Bernstein, she’d been six; she was now a sprightly eighty-seven, and showing no inclination whatsoever to fall over and die, leaving Talks With Squirrels to draw the demoralising conclusion that shooting the buggers was actually good for them.
    â€˜Still,’ said a small bird above his head, ‘it keeps you out of mischief.’
    â€˜Get lost, you,’Talks replied without looking up. ‘Since it’s all your fault, I’d be obliged if you’d keep your witty remarks to yourself.’
    â€˜My fault?’ The bird flapped its tiny wings, caught a gnat in mid-air and returned to its perch. ‘Here we go again. I’m sorry, but I can’t see the point in going through all that again. I only came by to say that if you want to nip home for more arrows, they’ll still be here when you get back.’
    â€˜Can’t be bothered.’
    The bird twittered cheerfully. ‘Oh no you don’t, Talks. Till the sun goes out and the moon falls out of the sky, remember? I don’t recall anything about only when you feel in the mood.’
    â€˜But it’s so pointless,’ Talks growled wretchedly. ‘I mean, what exactly does it achieve ? Ninety-four times I’ve crushed young Duane Flint’s head with a rock, and he’s never had so much as a bad cold in his life.’
    â€˜At least you’ve learned something,’ the bird replied. ‘Pointless. Doesn’t achieve anything. Out of the mouths of babes and dead Indians, huh?’
    Talks shook his insubstantial head. ‘Don’t give me that,’ he snarled. ‘It’s only pointless and doesn’t achieve anything when they don’t fall over when you kill them. Let me have one real shot - just one - and then we’ll see . . .’
    â€˜Oh, you,’ said the bird indulgently. ‘At least you’re consistent, I’ll give you that. Consistent as five hundred generations of lemmings, but consistent nonetheless. Good shooting.’
    â€˜Ah, piss off.’
    Wearily the ghost dragged itself to its feet and trudged away, mingling with the dappled shadows on the forest floor until it wasn’t there any more. The bird watched him go, then shook itself, swung her legs over the tree-branch and dropped lightly to the ground. Shading her eyes with the palm of her hand, she gazed across the valley to where she was talking to Linda Lachuk; another customer, three in one day. She wasn’t sure she liked these sudden flurries of new business; she was spreading herself pretty thin as it was. How people who couldn’t be in two places at once ever managed to cope, she had no idea.
    Time she wasn’t here. Time she was -
    - An otter, floating on its back in the middle of Lake Chicopee alongside a resolutely not-drowning lawyer.
    â€˜Here we go,’ she said.
    â€˜How?’ the lawyer replied. ‘I can’t swim, remember.’
    â€˜Then,’ said the otter, ‘maybe we should hitch a ride. Tell you what, the next ship that passes this way, we’ll flag it down.’
    â€˜Oh, very—’ Calvin Dieb didn’t finish his sentence, because just then a Viking warship rose up out of the water next to him. It was probably at this point that the skeleton crew who’d been doggedly manning the key positions in his sanity got up from their seats, switched off the lights, locked up and went home. At any rate, he found himself lifting his right arm out of the water and waggling his thumb furiously.
    â€˜Hello,’ said a voice from the ship. ‘How can I of assistance be?’
    â€˜You, um, going anywhere