Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth

Ten - A Chance for Revenge

I ended up having to drag Walker back through the lobby and out onto the steps of the Londinium Club. His eyes weren’t tracking properly, and he was mumbling to himself. Once we were safely outside, I glanced quickly around to be sure we were alone, then sat down on the steps to get my composure back. With the invisible door shut again, Lilith shouldn’t be able to come after us. For a while, anyway. Walker sat down suddenly next to me, all his usual poise and confidence gone. I suppose it’s not an easy thing, to see the lords and masters you’ve followed all your life revealed as cowards and scumbags, then turned into monster food. The night seemed relatively quiet, and no-one came by to bother us. I looked at Walker. A pain in my arse for most of my life, I’d often wanted to see him brought down, but not like this. He was staring out into the night as though he’d never seen it before.

“The Authorities are dead,” he said abruptly. “What do I do now?”

“Be your own man,” I said. “You can still give the orders that need giving, kick the arses that need kicking. Get things done. Someone’s got to lead the resistance. Who’s got more experience than you? You’re needed, Walker; now more than ever.”

Walker turned his head slowly to look at me. “You’re Lilith’s son,” he said finally. “You’re the King in waiting. You’re the legendary John Taylor, who always snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. Maybe you should be in charge.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve never wanted that. I have enough trouble being responsible for myself, never mind anyone else. And I’ve got other things to do. Don’t ask what. It would only upset you. You’ve always been The Man, Walker. So suck it up and soldier on.”

He smiled briefly. “You sound very like your father sometimes, John.” He stood up, and just like that all his old poise and confidence were back again. “I suppose someone’s got to turn you rabble into a disciplined fighting force. So, I’m going back to Strangefellows. Where will you go?”

“In search of some heavy-duty backup,” I said, getting to my feet. “We need more big guns on our side.”

“And if there aren’t any?”

I grinned at him. “Then I’ll improvise. Suddenly and violently and all over the place.”

He nodded. “It’s what you do best.”

He took out his Membership Card, activated it, and stepped through into the relative safety of Strangefellows bar. The Card disappeared with a soft sucking sound and a brief flurry of sparks, and I was left standing alone on the steps of the Londinium Club. I pushed my hands deep into the pockets of my trench coat, and looked out into the night. All the buildings around me were wrecked or burned out. Bodies everywhere. Screams in the distance, strange lights flaring on the horizon. The Nightside was going down for the third time, and I was running out of ideas. There had to be someone else, some Power or major player who still owed me a favour, or could be fooled into thinking they did… but I couldn’t think who. I couldn’t do this on my own. I needed someone powerful enough, or tricky enough, to stop this War in its tracks before it got out of hand. Before it led to the terrible future that was becoming more real, more inevitable, by the minute. Unfortunately there was only one name left on my list, the one I’d been trying so hard not to think of. Because he scared the crap out of me.

The Lord of Thorns. The Overseer of the Nightside, appointed directly by God to keep an eye on things.

Mostly, he didn’t intervene personally. He was the last judge of all disputes, the Nightside’s court of last resort, the one you only went to when everything else had failed and you were tired of living anyway. I’d been half-expecting him to turn up and start smiting everything in sight for some time now. Since he hadn’t, it looked like I was going to have to give him his wake-up call. Lucky old me. The Lord of Thorns lived in the World Beneath, the miles and miles of caverns, catacombs, and stone galleries that lay deep below the Nightside. The place where you went, when the Nightside wasn’t dark enough for you. The Lord of Thorns slept his sleep of centuries in a crystal cave in the deepest, darkest part of the World Beneath, and God help anyone who disturbed him unnecessarily.

I had only met him once, and that was more than enough. I am the stone that breaks all hearts, he’d said. I am the nails that bound the Christ to his cross. I am the necessary suffering that makes us all stronger… God’s power flowed through him, the power over life and death and everything between. He could save or damn you with a word or a glance, and his every decision was binding. I was pretty sure he didn’t approve of people like me, even though he’d been friendly enough, in a distant sort of way, at our last meeting.

Why hadn’t he come forth to confront Lilith?

I wasn’t at all keen on descending into the World Beneath, to talk to him. It was a foul and dangerous place, and a hell of a long way to travel, besides. Especially if he had already surfaced somewhere, to show Lilith the error of her ways… I pushed the thought back and forth for a while, but I was only putting off what I knew I had to do, so in the end I just sighed heavily, took the risk, and raised my gift. Wherever the Lord of Thorns was, in or under the Nightside, my gift would find him.

My inner eye, my third eye, opened wide and soared up into the night sky, my Sight spreading out for miles in every direction, till the whole of the Nightside lay sprawled below me like a twisted and convoluted map. Whole areas were burning, out of control, while monsters roamed the streets and panicked mobs ran this way and that. I forced my Sight to focus in on the one individual soul I was searching for, and my mind’s eye plummeted down, narrowing in on a single speck of light in the dark. I’d found the Lord of Thorns. Just as I’d thought, he had left the World Beneath for the surface; but much to my surprise, the most powerful man in the Nightside was currently hiding out in St. Jude’s, the only real church in the Nightside.

I quickly shut down my Sight, and dropped back into my head. I took a few moments to make sure all my mental barriers were safely in place again. I really didn’t want Lilith to know where I was till I was ready to face her. I considered what to do next. St. Jude’s wasn’t anywhere near the Street of the Gods, because it was the real deal. An ancient place of worship, almost as old as the Nightside itself, older by far than the Christianity that had given it its present name. (St. Jude is the patron Saint of lost causes, in case you were wondering.) It was the one place in all the world where you could go to speak with your Maker and be sure of getting a reply. Which is why most people didn’t go there. Unless they absolutely had to.

St. Jude’s was located way over on the other side of the Nightside, a long way from anywhere, and separated from me by miles and miles of very dangerous territory. Walking was not an option. I wished I’d told the Harley to stick around. I took my Membership Card out of my pocket, fired it up, and called for Alex Morrisey in a loud and demanding voice. There was a pause, just to keep me from getting above myself, then his face appeared, glowering out of the Card at me.

“Taylor! About time you turned up again. If only so you can pay your bar bill before the world ends. And what have you done to Walker? He showed up here a few minutes ago looking like someone had put the fear of God into him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so pissed off at the world. He’s currently charging round my bar yelling orders at everyone like Captain Kirk on crack, and organising everyone within an inch of their lives.”

“Probably just a midlife crisis,” I said. “Put Tommy Oblivion on, would you, Alex? I need to ask him something.”

Alex sniffed loudly, just to remind me he was no-one’s servant, and his face disappeared from my Card, which then played me a tinny Muzak version of Prodigy’s “Firestarter” while I was on hold. Tommy’s face finally peered out of the Card at me, frowning suspiciously.

“What do you want, Taylor?”

“You,” I said.

And I reached into the Membership Card, grabbed him by the front of his ruffled shirt, and dragged him through the Card to where I was. The Card expanded hastily to let him through, but even so it was a tight squeeze for a moment. Tommy sat down suddenly on the Club steps as his head spun from the sudden transfer, and the Card shrank back to normal size and shut itself off, possibly in protest at such rough handling. I put it away, and helped Tommy to his feet.

“Son of a bitch!” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “That just about sums me up.”

He glared at me. “I didn’t know you could do that with a Card.”

“Most people can’t,” I said. “But I’m special.”

Tommy sniffed. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.” He brushed himself down here and there, repairing his appearance as best he could, then looked at the headless Doorman, lying on the steps beside him. He moved fastidiously a little further away from the blood. “Been busy, I see.”

“For once, not my fault.” I filled him in on what had been happening, or at least as much of it as I thought he could cope with, and explained my need to get to St. Jude’s in a hurry. He really wasn’t keen on the idea, but I can be very persuasive when I have to be. Not to mention downright threatening. I only had to mention a certain video that had come into my hands, featuring him and a very athletic exotic dancer, who happened to be married to someone exceedingly scary, and suddenly he was only too willing to help me out. (I didn’t actually have the video. I’d just heard of it and run a bluff. The guilty flee…)

Tommy Oblivion’s gift manifested subtly on the air around us, and everything became uncertain. Tommy was an existentialist, and his gift allowed him to express his uncertainty about the world in a real and very physical way. The more he thought about a thing, the more possibilities he could see, and he fixed on the reality he preferred and made it solid. By concentrating hard enough, Tommy was able to convince the world that not only were we not where it thought we were, but actually we were somewhere else entirely.

And so, in the blink of an eye we left the Londinium Club behind us and materialised outside the Church of St. Jude. A dodo wandered past, hooting mournfully, a flock of passenger pigeons flapped by overhead, and an ostrich with two heads looked confusedly at itself, but they were only a few odd possibilities generated by Tommy’s gift. He concentrated on shutting his gift down, while I looked around us. Everything but the church had been razed to the ground, for as far as the eye could see. It stood alone, an old squat stone structure in the middle of a wasteland. A wide-open plain of ash and dust, where thick curls of glowing ground fog surged this way and that under the urging of a fitful wind. It was very dark, with just the blue-white glare of the oversized moon shining off the church walls. In the distance, fires leapt up briefly, screams rang out, but it was all very far away. The War had come and gone here, and left nothing behind but the church.

“I’m trying very hard to be existential about this,” Tommy said finally, “But this really is a god-awful place. I’d like to say something like… from the ashes of the old shall arise a brave new Nightside… but my heart isn’t in it.”

“If a new Nightside does arise, I doubt it would be anything you or I would recognise, or would want to,” I said. “Not if Lilith has her way.”

“God, you’re depressing to be around, Taylor. My brother’s more cheerful than you, and he’s dead. Who are we here to see, anyway?”

“The Lord of Thorns.”

“Right,” said Tommy. “I am leaving now. Good-bye. Write if you get work. I am out of here…”

“Tommy…”

“No! No way in Hell! There is absolutely nothing you can say or do or threaten me with that would persuade me to have anything to do with Him! I would rather eat my own head! The Lord of Thorns is the only person who actually scares me more than Lilith! She only wants to kill me; he wants to judge me!”

“You could leave,” I said. “But it’s a really long walk to anywhere civilised. All on your own, in the dark. And if you try to teleport back using your gift… I’ll just have the Lord of Thorns drag you back again.”

“You know the Lord of Thorns?”

“I know everyone,” I said airily.

Tommy kicked at the dusty ground. “Bully,” he muttered, not looking at me.

“You’re my ride home, Tommy,” I said, not unkindly. “You don’t have to come into the church with me, if you don’t want to. You can guard the door.”

“It’ll all end in tears,” said Tommy.

I tried the church’s only door, and it opened easily at my touch. I left Tommy sulking outside, and went in. The bare stone walls were grey and featureless, with only a series of narrow slits for windows. Short stubby candles that never went out burned in old lead wall holders, casting a cold judgemental light. Two rows of blocky wooden pews, without a cushion in sight. The altar was just a great slab of stone, covered with a cloth of spotless white samite. A single silver cross hung on the wall over the altar. And that was it. You didn’t come to St. Jude’s for frills and fancies.

This was a place where prayers were answered, and if you didn’t like the answers you got, that was your problem.

A single ragged figure sat slumped on the cold stone floor, leaning against the altar, embracing it with desperate arms. It was the Lord of Thorns. He looked like he’d been crying. He also looked like he’d been dragged through Hell backwards. Instead of the grand Old Testament Prophet I remembered, he looked like one of the homeless, like a refugee. The Overseer of the Nightside had been reduced to a man in torn and bloodied robes. His long grey hair and beard had been half-burned away. He didn’t look up as I walked down the aisle towards him, but he flinched at the sound of my footsteps, like a dog that’s been kicked once too often. I knelt before him, took his chin in my hand, and made him look at me. He trembled at my touch.

“What are you doing here?” I said. I didn’t mean for it to come out as harshly as it did, but that’s St. Jude’s for you.

“It’s all gone,” he said, in a distant, empty voice. “So I’m hiding. Hiding out, in the one place where even Lilith’s power can’t touch me. I believe that. I have to believe that. It’s all I’ve got left.”

I let go of his chin, and made an effort to soften my voice. “What happened?”

His eyes came up to meet mine, and a Vision appeared in my mind’s eye, showing me Lilith’s descent into the World Beneath. She came in force, with all her monstrous Court, smashing through ancient defences and protections as though they weren’t even there, and set her people to destroying everything and everyone. As above, so below. Just because she could. She wiped out the Eaters of the Dead, the Solitudes in their cells, the Subterraneans in their sprawling city of catacombs. A warning went out ahead of her, echoing from gallery to gallery, and some came out to fight and some dug themselves in deeper; but none of it did any good. Lilith and her terrible offspring pushed relentlessly on, destroying whole nests of vampires and ghouls and Elder Spawn, and even the worms of the earth in their deep deep tunnels.

The Lord of Thorns came forth from his crystal cave, wrapped in power and a cold, awful anger, to set his faith and authority against Lilith. For he was the Voice of God, and she was but a name out of the past. He had his staff of power, its wood taken from a tree grown from a sliver of the original Tree of Life itself, brought to Britain long and long ago by Joseph of Arimathea. The Lord of Thorns stood in Lilith’s way, and she slapped him aside contemptuously. She took his staff and it shattered into pieces in her grasp. She walked on, leaving him lying helpless in the dirt, and not even the least of her offspring would deign to touch him. The killing continued, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He made himself watch, as a penance. And when it was all over, the Lord of Thorns made his way up from the World Beneath and came to St. Jude’s. To hide.

“You have to understand,” he said, as the Vision faded from my mind. “When Lilith appeared, I thought I’d finally discovered my true purpose, my reason for being in the Nightside. That this was my destiny—to stop Lilith when no-one else could. But I was wrong. I was nothing, next to her. After so many years of judging others, I was judged… and found unworthy.”

“But… you’re one of the greatest Powers in the Nightside!”

“Not compared to her. I forgot… in the end I’m just a man, blessed with God’s power. And my faith… was nothing compared to her certainty.”

“All right,” I said. “We need backup. Can we use St. Jude’s to call for Heavenly help? For direct divine intervention?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” said the Lord of Thorns. “The Nightside was expressly designed from its first conception so that neither Heaven nor Hell could intervene directly. And it was decided long ago in the Courts of the Holy that this Great Experiment would be allowed to continue, to see where it would lead. I was placed here to Oversee the Experiment, to keep it on track. But now that the Nightside’s creator has returned, it seems my time and my purpose are at an end. There will be no outside help. The Nightside must save itself. If it can.”

“There is a resistance,” I said. “Come with me. You can be a part of it.”

But the Lord of Thorns just sat where he was, shaking his grey head. “No. I am not who I thought I was. So I will stay here and pray for guidance.”

I tried to argue with him, but I don’t think he really heard me. Lilith broke him when she broke his staff. So I left what was once the most feared man in the Nightside, sitting mumbling to himself, in the one place he still felt safe.

I went outside and found myself facing a crowd of hard-faced and heavily armed individuals. Their expressions lit up at the sight of me, and not in a good way. At their head stood Sandra Chance, resplendent in her thick crimson swirls of liquid latex and not much else. Though the old-fashioned pistol holstered on her bare hip was a new addition. She grinned at me, very unpleasantly. I looked at Tommy Oblivion, who was standing very very still, with his back pressed against the wall of the church.

“Sorry, old sport,” he said miserably. “Didn’t even hear them coming. Just popped out of nowhere.”

“Have you at least asked them what they want?” I said.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure they want to speak to you, John. In fact, they were most insistent on it being a surprise.”

“It’s all right, Tommy,” I said, trying to hide the fact that internally I was hyperventilating. “I know who they are. They’re bounty hunters. How did you find me here, Sandra?”

“I can get answers from the dead, remember?” She was still smiling, not at all pleasantly. “And there are a lot of dead up and about just at the moment. The dead know many things that are hidden from the living. They have… an overview. And I can get them to tell me anything.”

“Yes,” I said. “And I know how. It’s one thing to love the dead, but you take it far too literally. You coffin chaser, you.”

“Am I understanding this correctly?” said Tommy. “You mean she actually…”

“Oh yes,” I said.

“Now that’s just tacky. I can’t believe I shared a picnic with her.”

“Shut up, Tommy,” said Sandra, not taking her eyes off me.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a War going on,” I said. “This really isn’t the time…”

“There’s always a war going on somewhere in the Nightside,” said Sandra. “You should know—you’ve started your fair share of them. My associates and I have decided that we don’t care. We want the reward on your head. It’s a really big reward; one of the biggest bounties ever posted in the Nightside. The very well connected families of the thirteen Reasonable Men you slaughtered want you dead, John, and they don’t care how much it costs them. There’s enough money on the table to buy all of us a way out of the Nightside and into some distant dimension where even Lilith can’t reach. And still leave enough cold cash for all of us to live like royalty, in our new home. So, revenge, escape, and all our dreams come true. In return for your head, preferably no longer connected to your body. See how neatly it all works out?”

“I thought you said you owed me,” I said carefully. “For saving your life in the Necropolis graveyard?”

“Whatever small debt I may have owed you, I more than paid it off being a good soldier for Walker and defending the Nightside during your absence. I want you dead, John. I can’t even breathe easily while you’re still among the living. You murdered my sweet Saint of Suffering, my beloved Lamentation. You have to pay for that. I put together this little band of bounty hunters, some of the very best in the business, just so I could be sure you wouldn’t dodge your death this time. Try your little bag of tricks against professionals, Taylor, and see where it gets you.”

She had a point. I considered the dozen or so bounty hunters fanned out in a wide semicircle before me, covering all the possible escape routes. Most were vaguely familiar faces, and three of them were actually famous, almost in a class with Suzie Shooter herself. At least she wasn’t here. Then I really would have been in trouble. The tall scarecrow figure in Sally Army cast-offs was Dominic Flipside, a short-range teleporter. Frighteningly quick and sneaky, you never knew from which direction he’d come at you next. Whispering Ivy was a rogue anima from Wales, made up entirely from flowers and thorns, an ever-shifting montage of natural forms in the vague shape of a woman. When she moved, it sounded like the whispering of owls. And Cold Harald, dressed as always in the starkest black and white, with a mind like a calculating machine. He always worked the odds, his logic unclouded by any trace of emotion or humanity. He held a machine pistol in each hand and looked like he knew how to use them. Any one of these three would have worried me, but all of them together… and Sandra Chance… I thought about running back into the church and screaming for sanctuary, but I knew I’d never make the second step.

“Don’t even think about the church,” said Sandra. “Or we’ll shoot your friend.”

Tommy looked at her, hurt. “After we worked together, such a short time ago? Have you no shame? You wound me, madam.”

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll wound you somewhere really painful,” said Sandra. “It’s up to you, Taylor. Surrender, and we’ll make it quick. You can go out with some dignity, at least. Make us work for your head, and we’ll all take turns expressing our displeasure on your helpless body.”

“Come and take it,” I said. “If you can.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” said Sandra Chance. “Remember, people, do what you like to the body but don’t damage the head. Our patrons won’t pay up unless the face is unquestionably his. I think they want to take turns pissing on it. Otherwise, anything goes.”

Tommy Oblivion stepped forwards. He’d always been a lot braver than people gave him credit for. His gift manifested very subtly on the air, making his words seem the very epitome of reasonableness and good sense.

“Come,” he said warmly, his arms reaching out to embrace everyone. “Let us reason together…”

“Let’s not,” said Cold Harald, in his flat, clipped voice, and he shot Tommy half a dozen times in the stomach. Tommy staggered back under the impact, slamming up against the church wall, then slid slowly down it until he was sitting on the ground. The whole bottom half of his ruffled shirt was slick with blood.

“Oh dear,” he said quietly. “Oh dear.” He bit his lip against the pain, and I could see him trying to concentrate, trying to raise his gift, so he could find a possibility where the bullets hadn’t hit him. But his face was already white and beaded with sweat, his breathing hurried and shallow. I could feel his gift sparking on and off, but pain and stress were getting in the way of his concentration.

I couldn’t expect any help from him. I was on my own.

I palmed an incendiary from out of my sleeve and tossed it into the midst of the advancing bounty hunters. Fire and smoke exploded noisily, and two of the bounty hunters fell broken and bleeding to the ground. The rest scattered. Dominic Flipside giggled, a long knife suddenly in each hand, then he disappeared, air rushing in to fill the space where he’d been. I felt as much as heard him reappear almost immediately behind me, and spun round, one arm raised. He cut me open from wrist to elbow, and disappeared again. Blood soaked the length of my coat sleeve.

Cold Harald stepped forward, raising both machine pistols to target me. Dominic Flipside was already gone. I fired up my gift, used it to find where he’d reappear, and stepped forward to meet Cold Harald. He hesitated, expecting some trick, some magic. Dominic Flipside appeared behind me, and lunged silently forward with his long knife. I stepped aside at the last moment, and Dominic plunged on to stab Cold Harald through the heart. His fingers tightened on the triggers of his machine pistols, and blew a dozen holes through Dominic Flipside. Both of them were dead before they hit the ground.

There was a rustling of plants, and the murmuring of dreaming owls, as Whispering Ivy stretched out a hand made of petals and thorns. She sprouted fierce tendrils of barbed greenery, her shifting shape rising up and towering over me, then she stopped abruptly. There was the sound of crackling flames, the smell of smoke. She looked back, turning her flowery head impossibly far round. While she was fixed on me, Tommy had crawled around behind her and set fire to her with his monogrammed gold lighter. Whispering Ivy shrieked as the flames shot up incredibly fast, consuming her construct body, and she ran off across the open ashy plain, howling shrilly, a shrinking flickering light in the gloom.

I looked at the remaining bounty hunters. They were all frozen in place, horrified at how quickly I’d taken out their star players. They all looked at Sandra Chance, to see what she would do. To her credit, she’d already thrown off any surprise or shock she might have felt, and had drawn the old-fashioned pistol from its holster. It was an ugly, mean gun, built with function in mind, not aesthetics. The metal was blue-black, the barrel unfashionably long. It looked like what it was—a killing tool.

“This is an enchanted pistol,” Sandra Chance said steadily. “It never misses. It belonged originally to the famed Western duellist, Dead Eye Dick, renowned hero of dime novels and at least one song. I dug up his grave and broke open his coffin to get this gun. I had to break his fingers to make him let go of it. I’d been saving it for a special occasion. You should feel honoured, John.”

“People keep telling me that,” I said.

She pulled the trigger while I was still speaking, and shot me three times in the chest. It was like being kicked by a horse, an impact so great it knocked all the breath out of my lungs and sent me stumbling backwards. The pain was remarkably focused; I could feel each separate bullet hole. There was a roaring in my head, and I still couldn’t breathe. I bent forward over the pain, as though bowing to my killer, to the inevitable, and then, suddenly, I could breathe again. I sucked in a great lungful of air, and it had never tasted so good. My head cleared, and the pains faded away to nothing. I straightened up slowly, not quite trusting what I was feeling, and pulled open my bullet-holed trench coat to look underneath. There were three more holes in my shirt, but only a little blood. I put my fingers through the holes in my shirt, and found only unbroken skin. I felt great. I looked at Sandra Chance, and she stared blankly back at me, open-mouthed.

“Honest,” I said. “I’m just as surprised as you are. But I think I know what’s happened. I once put werewolf blood into Suzie Shooter, to save her from a mortal wound. And later she put her blood into me, for the same reason. So it seems I have acquired a werewolf’s healing abilities. The blood’s probably too diluted to do anything else to me, but…”

“It’s not fair,” said Sandra. “You bastard, Taylor! You always have a way out.”

I had a feeling silver bullets might still get the job done, but I didn’t think I’d mention that to Sandra. I turned to the other bounty hunters, who were still as statues, watching with gaping mouths, and gave them my best nasty smile. Five seconds later all I could see was their backs, heading for the nearest horizon. They knew when they were outclassed. I turned back to Sandra Chance, and she shot me in the head. The impact whipped my head round, and for a moment it seemed like all the bells in the world were ringing inside my skull. I then felt the weirdest sensation, as the bullet crept slowly back out of my brain, the hole healing behind it, until it popped out my forehead and dropped to the ground. The bone healed with only the faintest of cracking sounds, and that was that.

I smiled at Sandra. “Ouch,” I said, just to be sporting.

She stamped her foot. “Don’t you ever play by the rules?”

“Not if I can help it,” I said.

We stood and looked at each other for a long moment. Sandra lowered her gun but didn’t put it away. I knew she was considering the possibilities of a bullet to a soft target, like an eye or my groin.

“We don’t have to do this,” I said. “All this kill or be killed bullshit. I don’t want to kill you, Sandra. There’s been enough death in the Nightside.”

“I have to kill you, John,” said Sandra, almost tiredly. “You murdered the only thing I ever loved.”

“The Lamentation isn’t actually dead,” I said. “I only returned it to its original human components.”

“They weren’t the Lamentation,” said Sandra. “They weren’t what I loved. So I killed them. And now I have to kill you.”

“I never understood what you saw in it,” I said carefully. “Even allowing for your well-known death fetish, and your preference for… cold meat. You must know the Lamentation didn’t love you. It couldn’t, by its nature.”

“I knew that! Of course I knew that! It was enough… that I loved it. The only creature something like me could ever love. It made me happy. I’d never been happy before. I’ll kill you for taking that away from me.”

“I won’t kill you, Sandra,” I said. “And you can’t kill me. Forget this shit. We’ve got a War to fight.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “Let it all burn. Let them all die. That’s the world I live in anyway. I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you, John. There’s always a way. Wherever you go, I’ll be there in the shadows, hunting you. And one day I’ll step out of a door or an alleyway and kill you dead, when you’re least expecting it. I’ll watch you choke on your own blood and laugh in your face as you die.”

“No you won’t,” said Suzie Shooter.

We both spun round, startled, and the roar of the shotgun was like thunder. Sandra Chance took both barrels in the chest, at close range. The blast tore half her upper torso away, and she was dead long before she hit the ground. Suzie nodded calmly, lowered the double-barrelled shotgun, and reloaded it from her bandoliers, and only then looked at me.

“Blessed and cursed ammo. If one barrel doesn’t get you, the other will. Hello, John.”

“Thank you, Suzie,” I said. There was nothing else I could say. She wouldn’t have understood. “How did you know to find me here?”

Suzie nodded at Sandra’s sprawled body. “She was dumb enough to approach me when she was putting her little army together. She thought the sheer size of the bounty would sway me. I won’t say I wasn’t tempted, but I like to think I’ve moved beyond that, where you’re concerned. So I came here. I thought you might need some backup.”

“I had the situation under control,” I said. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

“Yes I did,” said Suzie. “You heard her. She’d never give up. That’s why you’ll always need me around, John. To do the necessary things you’re too soft to do.”

“That’s not why I keep you around,” I said.

“I know,” said Suzie Shooter. “My love.”

She extended a leather-gloved hand to me, and I held it lightly in mine, for a moment.

“Excuse me for butting in on such a tender scene,” said Tommy Oblivion, “But I do happen to by dying here. I would appreciate a helping hand.”

He was lying on his side on the ground, both hands at his stomach, as though trying to hold it together. Suzie knelt beside him, pushed his hands aside, and checked the extent of the damage with experienced eyes.

“Gut shot. Nasty. If the bullets don’t kill him, infection will. We need to get him out of here, John.”

“I can’t use my gift,” said Tommy. His voice was clear enough, but his eyes were vague. “Can’t concentrate through the pain. But I absolutely refuse to die in such a drab and depressing location as this.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll take us back to Strangefellows through my Membership Card, and Alex will fix you up. You can put it on my tab.”

“Oh good,” said Tommy. “For a minute there, I was almost worried.”

I took out my Membership Card, activated it, then almost dropped the bloody thing as Lilith’s face looked out of the Card at me.

“Hello, John,” she said. “My sweet boy. My own dear flesh and blood. I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll come for you soon, then you’ll be mine, body and soul, forever and ever and ever.”

I shut down the Card, and her face disappeared. I was breathing hard, as though I’d just been hit. Suzie and Tommy were looking at me, and I realised they hadn’t heard a thing.

“Bad news,” I said. “We’re going to have to do this the hard way.”