In Your Dreams Read Free Page B

she’s been dead for hours’), he woke up.
    The notice hanging from Ricky Wurmtoter’s doorhandle was, as usual, both alarming and profoundly unhelpful. It read BEWARE OF THE PREDATORS .
    Paul had regarded Ricky Wurmtoter, the partner specialising in pest control, with suspicious caution ever since he’d taken Paul out to lunch on the day he’d joined the firm. Probably Mr Wurmtoter was just being nice; he was the youngest and most affable of the partners, looked and dressed like a movie star trying to be inconspicuous, spoke with a faint German accent and owned (among other things) a flying white horse that could get from London to north of Manchester in the time it took to boil an egg. His work mostly consisted of slaying dragons (who, being attracted to stored accumulations of wealth, tended to be a serious nuisance to museums, art galleries and banks), vampires, werewolves, manticores and other monstrous creatures that Paul had, until recently, fondly believed didn’t exist; accordingly he was out of the office a lot of the time, and Paul hadn’t had much to do with him since that initial lunch.
    Paul hadn’t been inside Mr Wurmtoter’s office before, and he was pleasantly surprised at how normal it was, at least by JWW standards. Apart from a couple of stuffed and mounted heads on the wall that would lead to a mass pulping and rewriting of textbooks if they ever fell into the hands of the scientific community, and a huge walk-in safe in one corner, there were just a plain desk, three chairs and an almost empty bookshelf.
    â€˜Paul,’ Mr Wurmtoter said, turning round and smiling pleasantly. ‘Thanks for joining us. You know Benny Shumway, I’m sure.’
    Paul knew Benny Shumway, no doubt about it. Instead of snarling at him, however, the cashier raised his left hand and waggled his fingers. Paul sat down next to him and tried to look keen and eager.
    â€˜As I’m sure you know,’ Mr Wurmtoter said, ‘it’s JWW policy for trainees like yourself to spend a month or so in each department, so we can see where your strengths lie and you can make up your mind which area you’d like to specialise in. Now, as I understand it, you’ve done your time with Dennis Tanner scrying for mineral deposits – he’s really pleased with your work for him, by the way, though I expect you’re sick to the teeth of staring at photos of bits of desert all day – and you made a start on sorcery and magic with Humph Wells, before—’ Mr Wurmtoter hesitated. It was Paul and Sophie who’d uncovered Humphrey Wells’s treachery towards his uncle, the firm’s senior partner; Humphrey Wells now served the firm in the capacity of Xerox machine, on the grounds that the copier is the most hated item of equipment in every office in the world. ‘And since then,’ he went on, ‘you’ve been doing odd jobs for all of us while we’ve been restructuring in the light of – well, you know.’ He paused, fiddled with the large claw he wore on a chain round his neck, and went on: ‘So really, it’s time you both got back on track with your vocational training, and I’d like it if you’d consider coming and working in my department for a while.’
    He paused again, clearly waiting for a response. Paul, who had a feeling that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter, mumbled, ‘Yes, lovely, thanks,’ or words to that effect.
    â€˜Great,’ said Mr Wurmtoter. ‘The thing of it is, though, I’m going to be away on a job with Jack – Mr Wells Senior
    â€“ and it’s likely to take quite some time. While I’m away, Benny here’ll be looking after things for me, and so you’ll be working with him. Is that going to be OK?’
    Like he could say no, with Mr Shumway sitting next to him. ‘Sure,’ he muttered.
    Mr Wurmtoter smiled. ‘That’s