The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [156]
“No, why—”
Shit. “Our drinks are well overdue.”
“And?”
“And this plot was set up by a document that’s classified CASE BROCCOLI GOLDENEYE, Angleton said, and Predictive Branch said I needed to be here, and . . .”
“And?”
I kneel on the floor and pull my mobile phone out, flick the switch to silence it, then put it in camcorder mode. I sneak it out from behind the sofa, then pull it back and inspect the bar. There’s nobody there. I swear quietly, and call up my thaumic scratchpad application. Then I tip my glass upside down over the table, and draw my fingers through the resulting beer suds frantically, wishing I hadn’t downed the pint and left myself mere drops to work with.
“Have you got that stupid piece of paper on you?”
“What, the license to kill? It’s just a prop, it doesn’t mean anything—”
“So pass it here, then. We haven’t had plot closure yet, and you’re not the only one who can use cosmetics and a class two glamour.
“Shit,” Mo whispers back at me, and rolls forwards onto the floor. “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“What, that we’ve been followed home by a manifestly evil mistress of disguise who is hankering for revenge because we got her husband stomped into pink slime by a chthonian war machine?”
There’s a disturbingly solid click-chunk from the front door, like a Yale lock engaging.
“Do you know the ending of Diamonds Are Forever? The movie version with Sean Connery?” I meet Mo’s eyes for a moment, and in a disturbing flash of clarity I realize that she means a whole lot more to me than the question of who she has or hasn’t been having sex with. Then she nods and rolls away from the floor in front of the sofa, and I hit the button on my phone just as there’s a flat percussive bang: not the ear-slamming concussion I expect from a pistol, but muffled, much quieter.
I look round.
The middle-aged barwoman is waving a pistol inexpertly around the room, the long tube of a silencer protruding from its muzzle: she looks subtly familiar this time. “Over here!” I call.
She makes the classic mistake: she glances my way and blinks, gun muzzle wavering. “Come out where I can see you!” Eileen snaps querulously.
“Why? So you can kill us more easily?” I’m ready to jump up and dive through the window if necessary, but she can’t see me—the concealment spell is still working, at least until the remaining beer evaporates. I go back to folding a paper airplane out of Mo’s license, my fingers shaking with tension.
“That would be the idea,” she says. “A lovers’ quarrel, male agent kills partner then shoots self. It doesn’t have to hurt.”
“No shit?” Mo asks. I squint and try to spot her, but one thing we’ve both got going for us is that pubs tend to be gloomy and poorly lit, and this one’s no exception.
Eileen spins round through ninety degrees and unloads a bullet into the wall of optics behind the bar.
I glance at the drying suds then roll to my hands and knees and creep around the sofa, trying to stay low. I think the paper plane’s balanced right—it had better be, I’m only going to get the one chance to use it. There are forms, and this is . . . well, it might work. If it doesn’t we’re trapped in a locked pub with a madwoman with a gun, and our invisibility spell has a half-life measured in seconds rather than minutes. There are two martini glasses on the bar, one of them half full: Maybe Eileen wanted to steady her nerves first? There’s probably an unconscious or dead bartender out back. What a mess: I don’t think an intruder’s ever penetrated the Village before. I doubt it would be possible without the blowback from the Hero trap to help.
There’s a creak from a floorboard and another shot goes flying, to no apparent effect. Eileen looks spooked. She takes a step backwards towards the bar, gun muzzle questing about, and then another step. My heart’s pounding and I’m feeling lightheaded with anger—no, with rage—You think anyone would ever believe I’d hurt Mo? And then she’s at the bar.
There’s a glassy chink.
Eileen spins round, and pulls the trigger