Free The Better Mousetrap by Tom Holt

when you killed them, but they reverted to human shape in the split second before they died, which meant you had to add VAT at 8.75% unless you killed them with a slow-acting poison such as silver nitrate, in which case the rate decreased from 17.5% by one percentage point per day for the period between the first administration of the poison and the actual date of death. And as for shape-shifters— The phone rang. Emily whimpered and picked it up. ‘Mr Gomez for you.’
    ‘What? Oh, right. Put him on.’
    Click, pause; then: ‘Emily?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Job for you.’
    Naturally. Like bloody magic. The moment she picked up a calculator, someone had a job for her. ‘Can it wait? Only I’ve got mounds and mounds of paperwork, and—’
    ‘Emergency,’ Colin said. ‘I’m at the client’s place now, as a matter of fact. Actually,’ he added, lowering his voice a little, ‘it’s the client’s mother-in-law. You know Stan Lazek, don’t you?’
    ‘No. Who the hell is—?’
    ‘CEO of Dragoman Software Solutions.’
    ‘Oh.’ Yes, definitely an emergency, in that case. ‘What seems to be the—?’
    ‘Can’t talk now,’ Colin interrupted. ‘Just get over here quick as you can. It’s at—’ He gave her an address in one of the more opulent west London suburbs. Emily jotted it down on the nearest file cover.
    ‘Look,’ she said, ‘you need to tell me what it is so I’ll know what stuff to bring. Like, if it’s harpies I’ll just want SlayMore, but if it’s a thirty-foot-high one-eyed giant I’ll need the 105mm recoilless rifle—’
    ‘Don’t worry about that. They’ve got everything you’ll need right here.’
    ‘Yes, but—’ Click. Buzz. Bastard. Colin Gomez was intellectual property, entertainment and media, so it was only to be expected that his grip on reality was one fingertip hooked over the edge of a very tall cliff. Even so. If there was one thing that really annoyed Emily, it was a complete lack of consideration for other people.
    Everything you’ll need right here. Yeah, sure. But just in case—
    She slid open the top drawer of her desk and took out a little canvas pouch. She held it for a moment before dropping it in her bag, as if drawing strength from it. Then she scribbled a note to say where she was going, and left the room.
    At least, with Dragoman footing the bill, she could take a taxi rather than battling over there on the Tube. As the Embankment shuffled smoothly by outside the taxi window, Emily closed her eyes and tried to figure out what she’d be most likely to find when she got there. Of course, if it was an entertainment-and-media job, there was absolutely no way of knowing. E&M magic was typically flamboyant, wide-dispersal and highly temperamental. If a reality-fiction interface had blown, for example, you could be up against any bloody thing: dinosaurs, skyscraper-climbing gorillas, space aliens, you name it, those cowboys in E&M could contrive a way of getting it over the line and letting it get away from them. A faulty glamour was just as bad. A year or so back, some pinhead in media R&D had developed a sort of cap thing that turned the wearer into whatever he truly wanted to be. Marvellous idea in theory, but if you’re going to make stuff like that you really can’t go cutting costs at the production stage. If you do, sooner or later something’s going to jam, some poor bugger’s going to stick like it, and suddenly you’ve got a junior Home Office minister swooping low over Whitehall on a thirty-foot wingspan shooting out jets of green fire from both nostrils. And Colin reckoned they’d got everything she’d need right there. Absolutely.
    Which was why she’d brought the Lifesaver, otherwise known as the Mordor Army Knife. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t really supposed to have one, since it had been made in the forges of the Dark Lord and counted as an instrument of darkness. But it had everything. As well as the usual penknife, screwdriver, bottle-opener