In Your Dreams by Tom Holt, Tom Holt

wasn’t sure whether he was hearing him or remembering, the dwarf was too far away. Don’t look round , he ordered himself, don’t say anything .)
    Then, quite suddenly, he could see Mr Shumway. He was kneeling down on the absence-of-ground, and he was reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a folded, tatty old baseball cap, opened it, reached in and pulled out ( Why am I not surprised? ) a white rabbit. In his other hand he was holding a knife. With a deft, quick movement—
    ( Don’t say anything , Paul commanded himself; because what he wanted to shout was ‘No!’, at the top of his voice)
    â€”Mr Shumway cut the rabbit’s throat, and its blood splashed on the empty space where the ground ought to have been, and disappeared, just as Mr Shumway had when he’d walked through the door. The rabbit stopped twitching in his hand; blood was still gushing out over his wrist, through his fingers. Now, however, where it stopped falling, there was ground; a flat, grey surface of dust, as though that was what the rabbit had had in its veins.
    â€˜It’s life, see,’ Mr Shumway was muttering. ‘Where it lands—’ He hesitated. ‘You do know where you are, right? Don’t answer,’ he added quickly. ‘In case you haven’t figured, this is death.’
    Fine , Paul thought.
    â€˜It’s all right,’ Mr Shumway went on. ‘It’s only a magic rabbit, it never really existed. But the blood’s real blood, so it does the job. Just about enough for what we’ve got to do.’ He dropped the carcass, which vanished. ‘Right, you can talk now. But only to me, and don’t look round . They’ll say anything to make you talk to them, and you really don’t want to do that. Trust me.’
    Implicitly , Paul thought. He had a nasty feeling that right behind him was a substantial crowd, all people he knew, relations mostly, all of whom he’d never expected to see or hear from again. He tried to concentrate on Mr Shumway, a tiny figure in a cheap suit standing on a minute patch of dust.
    â€˜Greetings.’ The man appeared almost out of nowhere, but not quite. Actually, he shot up out of the dust, like one of those shorts they show on television occasionally when something’s broken down; a film of a plant growing from a seed, speeded up thousands of times. He was Chinese, about seventy years old, in a long blue silk gown with enormous sleeves. He had a wrinkled face and a lovely smile.
    â€˜Afternoon,’ Mr Shumway replied casually. ‘How’s death treating you, then?’
    â€˜Very dull,’ the Chinese gentleman replied. ‘Yourself?’
    â€˜Can’t grumble. Paul,’ Mr Shumway added, ‘over here. This is Mr Dao, the chief cashier. This is Paul Carpenter.’ Short pause, significant. ‘He’s with me.’
    Mr Dao nodded politely. ‘Of course,’ he said.
    Then Mr Shumway turned round. His face was as white as paper. ‘It’s okay now,’ he said, ‘you’ll be all right now they know you. Give me the bag, and then we can get out of here.’ Paul handed him the satchel; he opened it. ‘These cheques to pay in,’ Mr Shumway said to Mr Dao, ‘and these TTs; if you can get them out today that’d be a great help.’
    â€˜No problem,’ said Mr Dao, with a faint smile.
    â€˜Thanks. Oh, and here’s the cash slips.’ Each time Mr Shumway handed something to Mr Dao, there was a moment between Mr Shumway letting go of it and Mr Dao taking it. The cheque or form or chit didn’t fall to the ground – obviously gravity was optional here. Equally obviously, if the two of them both touched something at the same time, something unpleasant would happen.
    Mr Shumway passed the bag back to Paul and nodded at the Chinese gentleman. ‘Seventeen thousand, four hundred and sixty-five pounds sterling,’ said Mr Dao. Paul,