The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny

ELEVEN Bringing Them All Back Home

I sat on the edge of the pit, my legs dangling over the impenetrable darkness. The cold wind was still blowing, ruffling my hair and striking tears from my eyes. I watched blood drops slowly form on the bottom edge of my trench coat, then fall into the pit. I felt tired, and hurt, and strangely numb. As though a major part of my life was finally over. For good or for bad, Walker had always been there in the background, defining my life by my resistance to everything he stood for. He protected me and threatened me, but he never once ignored me, like my father did. I could always depend on Walker ... to be Walker. I’d gone out walking earlier in the night because I was unsure about my life, and now I had just destroyed the one sure thing in it. I’d wanted change, and now I had it. You should always be careful of wishing for things in the Nightside because you never know who might be listening. There was the slightest of sounds to my left, and when I looked around, there was Hadleigh, standing next to me.

“Hello, John. You look like shit.”

“How the hell did you get here?”

He shrugged. “There are short cuts in reality if you know where to look.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“I know what I need to know when I need to know it”

“That answer is getting really irritating.”

“I know.” He looked thoughtfully down into the pit, leaning dangerously far over. “So Walker’s really gone, then?”

“Yes.” I studied him thoughtfully. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

“Not as such. The future’s not set in stone; there are many possible futures. Which one we end up in depends on the decisions we make. And you and Walker have always been very difficult to predict. You’re hurt, John. Allow me.”

He took a firm hold on my shoulder, and a sudden shock ran through me, like a bucket of cold water thrown right in my soul. I gasped, and the pain was gone; and I knew without having to check that all my wounds had been healed, all damage repaired. I scrambled up onto my feet, suddenly full of energy. Hadleigh chuckled briefly.

“You see, I’m not only here for the bad things in life.”

I arched my back and stretched my arms, relishing the freedom from pain and tiredness. I didn’t feel numb any more. I felt like kicking the whole damned world in the arse and making it take notice. I gave Hadleigh one of my best hard looks.

“What did you do to me? I’m not used to feeling this good. It feels ... strange.”

“Let’s just say I jump-started you. The technicalities would only upset you.”

“What is your job, exactly, Detective Inspectre?”

“I could tell you,” said Hadleigh. “But then I’d have to haunt you. Some secrets cannot be revealed because the burden is not mine to share. To put it simply, I walk between life and death, the better to deal with crimes against reality itself. Because somebody has to.”

I looked down at my once-white trench coat, now tattered and torn and soaked with drying blood. I looked at Hadleigh. “Could you ... ?”

“No, I couldn‘t,” Hadleigh said firmly. “I’m a healer, not a tailor.”

We stood together for a moment, side by side, looking down into the pit. Walker was gone. Let the neon lights be dimmed and the traffic brought to a halt. Walker was gone, and we shall not see his like again. If we’re lucky. After a while, I deliberately turned away from the pit and frowned at Hadleigh.

“You know where Tommy is, don’t you? When Larry asked, you said, Closer than you think.”

“Yes,” Hadleigh said equably. “I know. I’ve known all along. But I had to wait until you and Walker had put an end to your business. That was more important. What just happened here will affect the Nightside for generations to come.”

“How ...?”

“Tommy is in no danger where he is. He’s just ... lost, and needs our help to find his way home. Come on; Larry’s waiting. Impatiently, I have no doubt.”

I looked down the mountain side, at the dark and angry jungle that covered its slopes. “You going to call one of Larry’s limousines?”

“Oh,” said Hadleigh, “I think we can do better than that.”

He seemed to turn sideways, then keep on turning, and the sheer force of his unnatural motion dragged me along with him. In a moment we were both back at the Cheyne Walk approach, and Larry actually jumped as we appeared out of nowhere right in front of him. The few remaining onlookers took our reappearance as their cue to be getting along. I grinned at Hadleigh.

“Nice trick. Could you teach me to do that?”

“Depends. How attached are you to your sanity?”

“We’re still on speaking terms, which given my life is actually quite an achievement.”

“Where the hell have you been?” demanded Larry, glaring at both of us. “I thought you were here to help find Tommy, Hadleigh, but all you’ve done so far is stand around looking enigmatic, then disappear after Taylor.”

“Tommy’s right here with you, in a sense,” said Hadleigh. “It’s time to bring him back. I had to wait for John to acquire the last necessary piece of the puzzle. You do have the Collector’s device, don’t you, John?”

I took it out of my coat. Larry regarded it dubiously, while Hadleigh nodded a bit smugly.

“Put it on, John, and raise your gift. Then focus your gift through the device, and it will lead you right to Tommy.”

I raised the device with both hands, then hesitated as I remembered Walker doing the same thing. I cautiously lowered the future-science thing onto my head, while some small part of me gleefully thought, I crown thee King John the First of the Nightside. The device settled itself onto my head, feeling a lot heavier than it had in my hands. A series of small pin-pricks ran around my scalp as the device established contact, and sharp stabs of lightning detonated inside my head, as long-quiet parts of my mind woke up and made themselves known.

I raised my gift and a huge charge ran through my mind, blasting my inner eye wide open. And suddenly I could See a whole lot more of the world than I ever had before. All the secrets that had been hidden from me, all the wonders and terrors that my Sight either couldn’t or wouldn’t See; because the world is so much more full than we ever realise. I made myself concentrate on Tommy, and immediately I was surrounded by ghosts. Soft ghosts, people worn thin and ragged at the edges—vague, undefined, faceless. Walking through the hard places of the world as though they weren’t there. Haunted by their own past, forever always just out of their reach. Dazed, confused, helpless ... lost.

One of them was Tommy Oblivion. I was looking through his eyes now, Seeing the world he saw. He had become a soft ghost. I could sense his presence, his drifting, unfocused thoughts. More than dreaming, but far from awake. The Collector’s device brought our two minds together, and I could actually feel his thoughts concentrating, his identity coming into focus for the first time in a long time, strengthened and stabilised by my presence.

“John?” said Tommy Oblivion. “John Taylor? Is that you?”

“Yes, Tommy. I’m here with you. I’ve been looking for you. I’ve come to take you home.”

“Home ... I’ve been trying to find my way home for such a long time ... What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me, Tommy. Do you remember the Lilith War?”

“Hell, yes! There was a mob ... out of their minds, swarming all over me, trying to kill me. There was no way to escape, so ... I used my special gift and made myself existential. Neither one thing nor another, neither here nor there, living or dead. It saved me from the mob, but in that existential state I drifted out of reality, or turned sideways from it ... and became enduringly uncertain. In reality, but not of it.”

“A soft ghost,” I said.

“Yes ... I drifted through connecting dimensions, lost as any other soft ghost, set adrift from my moorings in the Nightside by what I’d done to myself. I saw seas on fire, under howling moons. I saw a dark labyrinth where the dead made candles out of the living. I saw men and women screaming in agony as they were burned alive in gigantic wicker men, under a bloody sun, at the orders of a great castle full of knights in terrible armour. Someone in that awful world opened a door into our reality, and I followed them through it, unobserved. But even though I was back in the Nightside at last, I still couldn’t change the state I was in.

“Ever since, I’ve been collecting people I knew and making them like me. Sometimes just to keep me company, sometimes to save their lives when they were in danger. I made them existential, too, made them soft ghosts like me. I was too far gone to realise what a terrible thing I was doing. It’s been a long time since I could think this clearly. I’ve been drifting back and forth for what seems like forever, reaching out to people I thought I recognised, trying to get their attention ...”

It was only then I remembered the soft ghost who’d been following Larry and me around all night, plucking at our sleeves, calling out to us. All the time we’d been looking for Tommy Oblivion, he’d been right there with us, closer than we thought.

Hadleigh was suddenly there, a solid presence standing firmly in the midst of the soft ghosts. They all turned to focus on him, attracted by his certainty like moths to a flame.

“Well done, John,” he said. His voice was everywhere, permeating the uncertain scene. “Now that you’ve made contact with Tommy, I can help you bring him back to reality. Make him real and solid and certain again.”

“And all the others, too,” said Tommy, his voice clear. “Not only the ones I’m responsible for; all of them. I can’t leave anyone here, like this.”

“Of course, Tommy,” said Hadleigh. “Everyone gets to go home. That’s what I do; that’s what I’m here for. I had to wait until John and Larry were working together because I needed both of them to do this. You’ve located Tommy, John; but you don’t have the power to bring him back. I can open a door between this place and the Nightside; but I can’t directly affect Tommy, or any of the others. Only Larry can do that, because he’s neither one thing nor another. Neither living nor dead, strictly speaking, a man suspended between two states of existence. But now, John, hang on to Tommy. I’ve opened the door. Larry, bring us home!”

I could sense Larry’s presence, cold and sharp like an unsheathed blade. I could feel him reaching out to us; and Tommy and Hadleigh and I reached back. And just like that we were all back in the Cheyne Walk approach, real and solid. Tommy looked about him, wide-eyed, grinning uncontrollably. Larry punched the air with one grey fist. Hadleigh folded his arms across his chest and nodded slowly to himself I snatched the device off my head, and immediately my thoughts were my own again and the world was happily limited. I shuddered briefly and tucked the device away inside my coat.

A whole crowd of new people stood around us, solid and real and aware again for the first time in God alone knew how long. Some were laughing; some were crying; others sat down hard and hugged themselves tightly, as though afraid they might drift away again. Larry suddenly hugged Tommy, actually lifting him off his feet.

“All right, yes, I’m glad to see you again, too!” said Tommy, breathlessly. “Now, put me down before you break something! You never did know your own strength, even before you died. And bloody hell, you’re cold.”

“Circulation problems,” Larry said solemnly. “Good to have you back, Tommy.”

“Good to be back. Damn, look at them. I didn’t know there were so many of them ...”

There had to be at least a hundred men and women, lost souls with their lives and identities finally restored. I recognised some of the faces. Larry and I had been talking about them earlier; familiar faces from the Nightside scene who hadn’t been seen in quite a while. Strange Harald the Junkman, in his assorted rags and tatters, asking plaintively if anyone had seen his horse. Bishop Beastly, splendid in his great scarlet cape, calling on all the spirits of the earth and air to avenge this slight to his dignity. Lady Damnation, with her corpse-pale face and fierce green eyes, licking her dark lips, eager to be about her nasty business again. Sister Igor, delicious as ever. Salvation Kane, gaunt and saturnine in his drab Puritan garb, glaring at everyone. Mistress Murmur, in a long pink ball gown, carrying a blood-soaked hatchet, as though she’d been interrupted in the middle of something. And many more besides, good and bad and somewhere in between, long gone and long thought lost. Not all of them Tommy’s fault, by any means.

We’d brought them all home, every lost soul of them.

“All right,” said Tommy. “Enough of the hugging, Larry! We were never that close. Thank you. I want to know what’s happened while I was away. Where’s Lilith, for starters? Did we win?”

“We won,” I said. “She’s gone; and she won’t be coming back.”

Tommy blinked at me, heard something in my voice, and decided not to pursue it. “How long have I been gone? Feels like years ... Like being caught forever in one of those horrible dreams where you try and talk to people, but they can’t see or hear you ...”

“That’s all over,” Larry said firmly. “I’m taking you back home, to Mum and Dad. They’ve been worried. They’ll look after you, put you back on your feet again.”

Tommy pulled a face. “You know very well I hate being fussed over. Mum’ll try and feed me up, and Dad’ll nag me about getting a proper job.”

“All the comforts of home,” said Larry. “You’re back, so be grateful. Or I will slap you one, and it will hurt. Hadleigh? What about you? Think you could find time in your busy schedule for a home visit?”

“Why not?” said Hadleigh. “Just for a while. I could use a little downtime.”

“Well, well,” I said. “The Oblivion Brothers, together again for the first time. Let the Nightside tremble, and evildoers cower in their lairs.”

“I’ve got this slap in my pocket I still haven’t used yet,” said Larry.

“Hold everything,” I said. “What about all these other returnees? We can’t walk away and leave them here. They’re going to need a lot of help and support, fitting into their old lives again or making new ones.”

“Not my business,” said Larry.

“Or mine,” said Hadleigh. “My work here is done. Thanks to you, John.”

And he looked meaningfully at me. I knew what he meant, and swore under my breath. In the past I would have contacted Walker, and he would have arranged care and comfort for these people. He might also have killed a few if he thought they needed killing ... But there wasn’t any Walker any more, thanks to me. Which meant ... it was up to me to do something. Because there wasn’t anyone else. The world has a way of arranging what it wants, and to hell with what we want. I’d have to take up Walker’s old position, for a while, because I didn’t have it in me to turn my back on people who needed help. That was why I’d become a private investigator in the first place, after all. Because there’d been no-one there to help me, when I needed it.

I’d take the position. Only until the Authorities could find someone better suited.

“I’ll phone Julien Advent,” I said. “Have the new Authorities send some people down here.”

“Where’s Walker?” said Larry. “Why isn’t he here?”

“Walker has gone to the Devil,” I said.