CHAPTER 7

"Well, it's kind of embarrassing, really." Fran dipped her caramelised biscuit into her tea with a sheepish expression, forgetting that Miles wouldn't get the benefit of it.
The basement was a miracle of orderly housekeeping, except in the kitchen where someone had spilt flour over the floor.
"No sense having it cluttered," said Miles simply when she'd complimented him on it. "I can't see my way around at the best of times, after all. Still, Gregson does well enough with the cleaning and cooking and such. He tried his hand at baking the other day. Got quite a flair for it, that boy."
Fran cast an eye onto the footprints still vaguely intelligible in the flour, but bit her lip.
"He still feels guilty, poor boy," continued Miles blithely. "He ran off a few years back, only for a week or so, saying he couldn't cope. Well, there's not enough trouble these days for him to give his eyes as well, so he keeps house while I find the monster."
"Ah," Fran said awkwardly.
Now, Fran and Miles sipped their tea in silence, until Miles said, calmly, "you want my eyes."
Fran looked up, subjecting Miles to that measuring glance of hers that could make the most self-confident mortal sag. "I'm not the first?"
Miles chuckled. "Nor yet the hundredth. That's why mine are the only eyes left. Well, the price is set, I'm afraid. If you want my eyes, you've got to slay the monster."
Fran sighed. "And how do I do that when I can't see it?"
Miles sniffed in a perfect imitation of his host. "I'm not the enchanter, child. I'll find you what you need, but after that I'm staying in here, and you're not getting anything without you've got the monster's pelt."
"Well then," said Fran calmly, "you'd best pass me that axe."

As soon as she'd left a grinning Miles in the basement, Fran found that, to her mild dismay, the security system, or at least the portions that could be influenced by the building caretaker, had developed a Fran-shaped blind spot. Useful, of course, but it made her far too conspicuous.
She'd tried closing her eyes, but without Miles' experience she simply tripped up the stairs a lot. Eventually, she learnt to tune her other senses without cutting out any of the mundane ones. Right now, she was distantly aware of a non-human mind on the top floor. It tasted… like cheap newsprint, and Fran wrinkled her nose. It was somewhere among computers too, Fran could taste their simple static flavour. She was never sure why her mind-sense allowed her to taste computers, when most of time it wouldn't even let her taste mammals.
There was a web development company on the top floor, which fitted with what Fran felt, so she drifted up the stairs, too divorced from what she called her humanity to even move her feet. Nonetheless, she was moving.
The door was open, which was Fran's first clue that something was different about tonight. Considering the amount of hardware in the office, whoever had failed to lock the door, should have been whipped. Unless, of course, nothing human had unlocked the door…
Fran moved to the far end of the office, trying to look confident, trying to stalk like the hunter she was pretending to be. There was nothing g there yet, she knew, but that taste was back again, however distant-
There was a low humming sound. It took Fran a moment to register it, before she realised that it was the sound of half a dozen computer on either side of the aisle still switched on. She reached out absently, letting their little silicon thoughts wisp onto the air.
And then, shockingly, the furthest computer switched on its monitor in a slow growth of light and colour. Then a nearer monitor switched on, and another, lighting a path to the suddenly nervous enchantress.
Each computer spelt out the same message, scrawled all over their desktop graphics in an unsteady hand.
HERE I COME
Fran relaxed her shoulder muscles. "Hello, Hartnes. I come in peace."
Then she broke the handle of the axe over her knee.

Interesting.
"I can hear you, you know. I mean, I think that's you. You just said 'interesting'."
"You're not human."
There was no mistaking the voice, now. It sounded younger than Fran had expected. "That's right. I'm an enchanter."
"You look like Coralee. Don't sound like her, though. What do you want, if you don't want to kill me?"
Fran grinned. "Well, for a start, can I suggest you don't fling the flour around quite so much? You left great big monstery footprints all over the kitchen. I'm assuming you replaced the other one when he ran off."
A human mind wouldn't have heard a chair creak. "He's all alone, poor old boy. It's no hardship, making the odd cup of tea, and my malt loaf's really coming along, he says."
"He'll kill you!"
"I've not done him any harm. There were my brothers, of course, but they're all gone now. I kept my head down-"
"Even the little tufty bits? Sorry, I think I'm getting my eye in, now."
"Quite." There was a sigh. "Everybody else killed us. It was the only way to get their eyes, you see. And I take it you do want his eyes?"
Fran sagged. "If I don't get them, I can't destroy this creature that's killing my… and if I don't stop her, she'll drain him dry and then move onto a bigger power, which in this case is my baby daughter- oh sod! I didn't think of that. I really need those eyes. If I get Amanda killed, it'll all…" Fran trailed off, waving her hands.
"Those look like bad-news gestures to me. So why didn't you kill me?"
Fran blinked out of her thoughts. "Because that's not fair. Damned if I'm swapping one life for another. Damned if I'm making someone else die for my mistake."
"I think I understand. But, my dear, how are you going to get the eyes from Miles?"
"Yes, well, I'm going to have to cheat, aren't I? Grief, I can't win, can I? I'm going to have to con a perfectly innocent old man- uh, do you really not want to die?"
"It's a priority," Hartnes said dryly.

Miles said in his comfortable, if threadbare, old armchair, and waited for the sounds.
In his youth, there used to be the most blood- freezing screams, followed by a scratching on the door, and a triumphant little gurgle in their ears for days afterwards. Rather more rarely, there used to be clashing and roaring, until some poor hero staggered in, clutching seeping bits of fur, and probably some mortal wounds of their own.
The one thing Miles wasn't expecting was a polite knock on his door.
"Erm," called Fran, "may I come in?"
"Of course, of course," called Miles happily, "I'll put the kettle on."
"Okay," breathed Fran as she slumped past the threshold. "For a start, I'd like to apologise about the axe. It got broke during our little confrontation."
"Axes mend," said Miles diplomatically. "What of the pelt?"
"Yep, here we are. There, can you feel how it's all tufty?"
"That's the pelt all right. Well, the case you seek-"
"Um. Look. I can't tell a lie. It's the lad you called Gregson. He's the one carrying the pelt in, not me."
"Really?" Miles smiled. "That you, boy?"
"That it is, sir. But she's an honest girl, sir, and-"
"-And she didn't kill you after all." Miles smiled as he imagined two identical expressions on very different faces. "Well? Did you think I didn't know all these years? You've taken my weight on your shoulder often enough, and that isn't a human's gait. But as for you-" suddenly he turn on Fran. "An honest girl, is it?"
"I didn't lie to you. You do call him Gregson, and he is carrying the pelt. It's just attached, is all."
Miles sniffed. "All right, I can't fault you there. And you did bring me the pelt. Hmm." He fiddled with a little glass object. "Well. If there's one thing I know about enchanters, it's that you'd cheat and trick you way across half of Creation to get what you want. Don't look like that, child, it's not meant to be flattering. I tell you what, I'll lend you my eyes, for a night and a day, and then Gregson here will return them to me. How does that sound?"
"That's all I need them for. Thank you, Miles. Gregson can come with me, if he likes."
Miles sniffed. "He can not."
"I can't?"
"You, my boy, have flour to clean up."
The ancient monster beamed.
"Yes, sir."

© Naomi Claydon, 2000