Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 An anthology of stories

The party was a very glamorous affair, with chandeliers like elaborate ice sculptures and ice sculptures like elaborate chandeliers.

This created an effect of very tasteful strobe lights playing on the discreet black clothing of the guests.

A suspiciously nondescript man paused on his voyage over the glowing floor to speak to a lady. She was wearing a dress more daring than any of the party dresses around her, and very striking lipstick.

They were, of course, both spies.

“Who are you hunting today?”

“Oh, the English, of course,” said the lady. She did not turn her Ts into Zs except when playing certain roles, but her faint accent was nevertheless very Russian. “Look at their latest golden boy .”

She laid a certain emphasis on the word boy.

Let us play I Spy , and follow the spies’ line of vision to the bar where a boy was leaning. He wore a black suit like every other suit in the room, tailored to discreet perfection.

The look was rather spoiled by the knotted dead leaf he was wearing as a bowtie.

The Russian spy detached from her companion and came over to the bar, slinking like a panther in an evening gown. Which is to say, with some suggestion that the evening gown might be torn off at any moment.

She offered the boy her hand. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

The lady noted his wary look, and told herself that no matter how young he seemed, he was obviously a true professional. She was not to know this was how Peter regarded all grown-ups.

“Ivana,” she murmured, which I must tell you was a fib.

“The name’s Pan,” said Peter, who I must admit was showing off. “Peter Pan.”

Neither of them was really on their best behavior. Spies rarely are.

“What will you have?” asked the bartender.

“Martini,” said Ivana. “Shaken, not stirred.”

“Milk,” said Peter. “Warm, not hot.”

The bartender and Ivana both gave Peter rather doubtful looks. Peter has been receiving such looks for more years than he could ever count, and he looked disdainfully back.

“Come now,” Ivana said, and reached for Peter’s arm. “I think we can do better than that. After all, you’re almost a man.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed. “ No. I am not .”

She was very clever, that Russian spy who was not really called Ivana. She instantly saw she had made a mistake.

“I meant to suggest that this affair must be boring you. After all, it really isn’t up to the excitement that a boy of your… many talents must be used to.”

Peter looked more favorably upon her. “I do have many talents. Thousands, really. Millions of talents. Nobody has ever had as many talents as I!”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“I keep them in a box,” said Peter, and looked briefly puzzled when Ivana laughed and then triumphant as he decided he had meant all the time to make a splendid joke.

He beamed at her, and Ivana reared back.

She quickly collected herself, however. Remember, she was very well-trained.

“I imagine you have done many things,” Ivana murmured. “Such as the affair of Lady Carlisle’s necklace in the embassy?”

“Oh that! Yes, I took it! I flew in under cover of darkness and stole it.”

Ivana blinked. “You did?”

“I am a master thief,” Peter said with some satisfaction.

“It was my understanding that the English were the ones who got the necklace back,” Ivana said slowly.

“Oh yes,” Peter told her. “I fought the dastardly thieves single-handed and restored the jewels to their rightful owner! I remember now.”

“I see,” said Ivana.

The spies in Her Majesty’s Secret Service have long been renowned for their discretion. To protect their country, some have been known to spin a deft tale. Some have died rather than speak. Some, even under torture, have preserved a perfect British silence.

No spy but Pan has ever confessed to everything.

Ivana the Russian was getting a bit of a migraine. She rather wished Peter would take a breath between highly incriminating confessions.

“The Taj Mahal,” she began.

“I killed him,” Peter said. “He was a tyrant.”

“It is a building ,” Ivana informed him with a certain amount of hauteur.

Peter, occupied with relating the details of the epic battle he had fought, chose to ignore her. They were sitting at a small table in low light, away from the bar. Ivana had quite a row of martini glasses lined up before her. Peter was working on his seventeenth glass of warm milk.

“And what about the documents regarding that invention the Americans were making such a fuss about last week?” said Ivana, who had abandoned diplomacy and cunning around the time of martini number nine.

“I have those,” Peter told her complacently, and Ivana was heaving another irritated sigh when Peter added, “Upstairs in my room. I have them hidden in the nightstand. I’m meant to hand them over to the Queen tonight, but my helpers needed to rest, so here I am at this boring party.”

Ivana hesitated. “I should very much like to see them.” She paused and then smiled a coaxing smile. “It would be so thrilling to see proof of how clever you are, Peter!”

“It would be very thrilling for you,” Peter agreed.

“And I would be terribly grateful.”

“How grateful?” Peter asked.

Ivana looked slightly startled. “Very grateful indeed.”

Peter’s eyes brightened. “Do you know any bedtime stories?”

“My dear boy,” said Ivana, not missing a beat. “Hundreds.”

Since Ivana really was very clever, and Peter could be extremely heedless, she might very well have got her hands on the American documents that night. Except that Peter, careless as always, had forgotten to mention one small detail.

His helpers were indeed resting. Pan’s elite team of killer fairies was having a little nap in the nightstand, right on top of the documents.

“Troops, troops!” Peter bawled over all the yelling. “Attention! Attention! That means you, Ninja Star! Stop kicking her in the earlobe right now!”

Ninja Star was his best fairy and was the captain whenever Peter was on a solo mission or got bored and wandered off. There was no denying zie had a temper.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” said Peter severely, because he knew that discipline was vital. Then he became bored with his role as stern commander, spun and levitated three feet in the air.

It was probably for the best. It hadn’t seemed to him like Ivana knew any bedtime stories at all.

Ivana made the discreet decision not to try and get up. She watched with wide eyes as the boy rocketed out of the window, a silhouette in the moonlight, with the fairies following him like a host of tiny stars.

Given the new evidence, Ivana was going to have to reevaluate some of Peter’s claims. With his ability to fly and his tiny helpers, a good many more of the missions he boasted about might be true.

And many of his stories were true, especially the wildest ones, because Peter often had strange and terrible adventures.

Which ones, we will never know. Peter does not even know himself.

Still, I think we—and Ivana—may be reasonably sure that Peter never fought a duel to the death with the Taj Mahal.

Her Majesty, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her Other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, was quite vexed.

She had been forced by abject pleading, several resignations, and (in one unfortunate case) an incarceration in a secure mental facility to receive Pan’s reports herself.

It was, however, growing extremely late. She had been up all day meeting with tedious ministers and an enormously dreary duchess, and she found her eyes traveling too often to the sack that lay at her butler’s feet.