Diana Jones - Mixed Magics

The Willing Warlock put the money and the pistol in his pocket and hailed a taxi in which he drove all the way to Shepherd’s Bush, feeling this was the next best thing to having a car of his own. It cost a lot, but he arrived at the French wizard’s office still with £273 6s 4d in his pocket.

The French wizard shrugged in a very French way. “What is it you expect me to do for you, my friend? Me, I try not to offend the police. If you wish me to help it will cost you.”

“A hundred pounds,” said the Willing Warlock. “Hide me somehow.”

Jean-Pierre did another shrug. “For that money,” he said, “I could hide you two ways. I could turn you into a small round stone—”

“No thanks,” said the Willing Warlock.

“—and keep you in a drawer,” said Jean-Pierre. “Or I could send you to another world entirely. I could even send you to a world where you would have your magic again—”

“Have my magic?” exclaimed the Willing Warlock.

“—but that would cost you twice as much,” said Jean-Pierre. “Yes, naturally you could have your magic again, if you went somewhere where Chrestomanci has no power. The man is not all-powerful.”

“Then I’ll go to one of those places,” said the Willing Warlock.

“Very well.” In a bored sort of way, Jean-Pierre picked up a pack of cards and fanned them out. “Choose a card. This decides which world you will grace with your blue chin.”

As the Willing Warlock stretched out his hand to take a card, Jean-Pierre moved them out of reach. “Whatever world it is,” he said, “the money there will be quite different from your pounds, shillings and pence. You might as well give me all you have.”

So the Willing Warlock handed over all his £273 6s 4d. Then he was allowed to pick a card. It was the ten of clubs. Not a bad card, the Willing Warlock thought. He was no Fortune Teller, of course, but he knew the ten of clubs meant that someone would bully somebody. He decided that he would be the one doing the bullying, and handed back the card. Jean-Pierre tossed all the cards carelessly down on a table. The Willing Warlock just had time to see that every single one was the ten of clubs, before he found himself still in Shepherd’s Bush, but in another world entirely.

He was standing in what seemed to be a car park beside a big road. On that road, more cars than he had ever seen in his life were rushing past, together with lorries and the occasional big red bus. There were cars standing all round him. This was a good world indeed!

The Willing Warlock sniffed the delicious smell of petrol and turned to the nearest parked car to see how it worked. It looked rather different from the one he had tried to steal in Wolvercote. Experimentally, he made a magic pass over its bonnet. To his delight, the bonnet promptly sprang open an inch or so. The French wizard had not lied. He had his magic back.

The Willing Warlock was just about to heave up the bonnet and plunge into the mysteries beneath, when he saw a large lady in uniform, with a yellow band round her cap, tramping meaningly towards him. She must be a policewoman. Now he had his magic back, the Willing Warlock did not panic. He simply let go of the bonnet and sauntered casually away. Rather to his surprise, the policewoman did not follow him. She just gave him a look of deep contempt and tucked a message of some kind behind the wiper of the car.

All the same, the Willing Warlock felt it prudent to go on walking. He walked to another street, looking at cars all the time, until something made him look up. In front of him was a grand marble building. CITY BANK, it said, in rich gold letters. Now here, thought the Willing Warlock, was a better way to get a car than simply stealing it. If he robbed this bank, he could buy a car of his very own. He took the toy pistol out of his pocket and went in through the grand door.

Inside it was very hushed and polite and calm. Though there were quite a lot of people there, waiting in front of the cashiers or walking about in the background, nobody seemed to notice the Willing Warlock standing uncertainly waving his pistol. He was forced to go and push the nearest queue of people aside and point the pistol at the lady behind the glass there.

“Money or your life,” he said.

They seemed to notice him then. Somebody screamed. The lady behind the glass went white and put her thumb on a button near her cash-drawer. “How – how much money, sir?” she faltered.

“All of it,” said the Willing Warlock. “Quickly.” Maybe, he thought afterwards, that was a bit greedy. But it seemed so easy. Everyone, on both sides of the glassed-in counter, was standing frozen, staring at him, afraid of the pistol. And the lady readily opened her cash-drawer and began counting out wads of five-pound notes, fumbling with haste and eagerness.

While she was doing it, the door of the bank opened and someone came in. The Willing Warlock glanced over his shoulder and saw it was only a small man in a pin-striped suit, who seemed to be staring like everybody else. The lady was actually passing the Willing Warlock the first bundle of money, when the small man shouted out in a very big voice, “Don’t be a fool! He’s only joking. That’s a toy pistol!”

At once everyone near turned on the Willing Warlock. Three men tried to grab him. An old lady swung her handbag and clouted him round the head. “Take that, you thief!” A bell began to ring loudly. And, worse still, an unholy howling started somewhere outside, coming closer and closer. “That’s the police coming!” screamed the old lady, and she went for the Willing Warlock again.

The Willing Warlock turned and ran, with everyone trying to stop him and getting in his way. The last person who got in his way was the small man in the pin-striped suit. He took hold of the Willing Warlock’s sleeve and said, “Wait a minute—”

The Willing Warlock was so desperate by then that he fired the toy pistol at him. A stream of water came out of it and caught the small man in one eye, drenching his smart suit. The small man ducked and let go. The Willing Warlock burst out through the door of the bank.

The howling outside was hideous. It was coming from a white car labelled POLICE, with a blue flashing light on top, which was racing down the street towards him. There was rather a nice car parked by the kerb, facing towards the police car. A big, shiny, expensive car. Even in his panic, and wondering how the police had been fetched so quickly, that car caught the Willing Warlock’s eye. As the police car screamed to a stop and policemen started to jump out of it, the Willing Warlock tore open the door of the nice car, jumped into the seat behind the steering-wheel, and set it going in a burst of desperate magic.

Behind him, the policemen jumped back into their car, which then did a screaming U-turn and came after him. The Willing Warlock saw them coming in a little mirror somebody had thoughtfully fixed to the windscreen. He flung the nice car round a corner out of sight. But the police car followed. The Willing Warlock screamed round another corner, and another. But the police car stuck to him like a leech.

The Willing Warlock realised that he had better spare a little magic from making the car go in order to make the car look different. So, as he screamed round yet another corner into the main road he had first seen, he put out his last ounce of magic and turned the car bright pink. To his relief, the police car went past him and roared away into the distance.

The Willing Warlock relaxed a little. He had a nice car of his own now and he seemed to be safe for the moment. But he still had to learn how to make the thing go properly, instead of by magic, and, as he soon discovered, there seemed to be all sorts of other rules to driving that he had never even imagined.