The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny

EIGHT I’m Here, Mark

It was raining, a harsh, persistent drizzle, like the tears of some passing god. Just enough to make the night even more miserable. Pools and puddles everywhere, and even more splashed up across the pavements by passing traffic. I hunched my shoulders against the rain and looked around me. It didn’t take me long to realise that Walker had walked me round in a circle. I was right back at the Cheyne Walk approach. Larry Oblivion was standing right where I’d left him. Some people just can’t be left to get on with things on their own. I strode down the street and hailed him by name, and he looked round, startled.

“Taylor? I thought you were going walkabout with Walker?”

“I did,” I said. “We’ve been all over the Nightside. Why are you still here?”

He looked at me oddly. “You’ve only been gone a few moments.”

Of course. Typical of Walker, to have the last word when he wasn’t even there. I hadn’t known his personal Timeslip could play tricks with Time as well as Space, but it did explain a lot.

“Walker,” I said heavily to Larry, and he nodded. Sometimes that name is all the explanation you need.

“What did he tell you about Tommy?” said Larry, straight to the point as always.

“Apparently the Collector’s got him,” I said. “The man has gone totally loop the loop, and has taken up collecting people instead of things.”

“Why the hell would he want Tommy?” said Larry, honestly baffled. “Nobody wants Tommy. I wouldn’t if he wasn’t my brother.”

“Because of his special gift?” I said. “The Collector has always had a weakness for unique items.”

“If the Collector is holding Tommy against his will, then we go where he is and take Tommy away from him,” said Larry. “Whatever it takes.”

“The Collector is a very powerful personage,” I said carefully. “The only reason he’s not a Major Player in the Nightside is because he can’t be bothered. He’s dedicated his life to acquiring rare and valuable objects. To help him in his search, he mastered sciences and magics and a whole bunch of other disciplines most people have never even heard of. Also, he steals time machines. He’s a fanatic, and dangerous with it.”

“I know,” said Larry. “And I don’t care.”

The rain was getting heavier. I moved us under a candy-striped awning to continue our conversation. Being dead, Larry probably didn’t care about getting soaked, but I’ve always been susceptible to chills.

“Look,” I said, “he isn’t in it for the money. His collection is everything to him. So if he has taken to collecting people, you can be sure he won’t give Tommy up without a fight.”

“I know,” said Larry. “And I still don’t care. One of the few good things about being dead is that you only have to care about the things you choose to care about. Let him do his worst. He can’t hurt me.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But he could destroy you. Or make you into one of his exhibits. Or do a hundred other awful things that death could not protect you from.”

Larry thought about it. “What are his protections like?”

“Top of the range, magical and scientific, and a few things we don’t even have a name for. Weapons and defences he’s collected from the past, the future, and any number of alternate realities. Plus his own private army of vicious little rococo robots. And let us not forget his latest acquisition, a time-travel device that apparently allows him to jump inside other people’s heads and look out through their eyes.”

“Ah,” said Larry. “Better kill him on sight, then.”

I had to smile at his confidence. “Better men than you and I have tried and failed. I’ve managed to outwit him on a few occasions, but only because he’s not too tightly wrapped. In his own way he’s just as dangerous as his old friend Walker.”

Larry looked at me sharply. “They know each other? I didn’t know that.”

“They started out together,” I said. “Thick as thieves and twice as tricky. And the fact that Walker is sending us, rather than facing the Collector himself, should tell you something.”

“Why is nothing ever simple?” said Larry, wistfully.

I shrugged. “It’s the Nightside. Everything’s complicated here, including the Collector. He wasn’t always crazy. He isn’t always the villain. For all his many sins, he did help save us all from Lilith during the War.”

“I don’t care,” Larry said stubbornly.

“What do you care about?” I said. I was honestly interested in the answer.

He didn’t hesitate. “I care about family, and friends. No-one else. Nothing else. We’re going to get Tommy back even if we have to do it over the Collector’s dead and lifeless body.”

“I seem to remember you saying something about Heaven and Hell seeming a lot closer, since you died,” I said. “Are you really ready to murder a man, before you know the whole story? He could be innocent in this.”

“No-one’s innocent in the Nightside,” said Larry. “Innocent people don’t come here. You know the Collector better than me; can you honestly say he hasn’t done anything to deserve being killed?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t say that. But that’s not a good enough reason to shoot him on sight. Let me try talking to him first.”

“Getting soft, Taylor,” said Larry.

I remembered meeting the Collector in a horrible, devastated future Nightside, the one I was supposed to bring about and had worked so hard to prevent. I remembered the horrible things the Collector did there, and the worse things he was prepared to let happen. I remembered how, long ago, he had found my mother for my father and put them together, and all the terrible things that came out of that. Including me. But I still wasn’t ready to see him dead. If only because he’d also been Uncle Mark, when I was a kid.

I used my gift to find the Collector’s current lair. He was always on the move, hiding his vast collection in more and more obscure locations, away from enemies and rivals and people like me. My inner eye snapped open as my gift manifested, and I shot up out of my head, my Sight soaring higher and higher into the night, sailing weightlessly in the star-filled skies, looking down at the twisting, turning streets of the Nightside.

So much light for so dark a place.

Street-lights and neon signs, and all the blazing multi-coloured come-ons from a town where sin is always in season. Scientific and magical glows, sputtering and flaring and detonating in the night, as a thousand forbidden experiments ran their inevitable courses. The dazzling streaks and smears of light from cars and trucks and other things as they roared endlessly along the Nightside roads, never slowing, never stopping. Neon illuminations, gleaming defiantly from clubs and bars and emporiums, beckoning on men and women with empty hearts and overburdened wallets. Let a thousand poisoned flowers bloom, pushing back the dark with their harsh glamour.

I sent my Sight flying over the Nightside, and it turned slowly beneath me, a city within a city, a world within a world. My Sight showed me the world as it really was and not as we would have it. Huge and transparent, their crowned heads scraping against the sky, the colossal Awful Ones went about their unknowable business, striding through solid buildings as though they weren’t even there. Long, sleek, bat-winged shapes soared through the chill upper air, flames leaping up from deep-set eyes and wide, fanged mouths. And wee-winged faeries came streaking through the night in shimmering flocks, speeding and darting back and forth in intricate patterns, leaving behind sparkling trails of sheer exuberance.

But no matter where I went or where I looked, I couldn’t See the Collector or his lair. I looked up into the frigid glow of the huge oversized Moon that dominated the Nightside sky. The Collector had a base there once, hidden away deep under the Sea of Tranquility; but he hadn’t gone back. It isn’t easy, to look at the Moon in the Nightside. There is no man in the Moon in that pallid, cratered sphere. It’s so big, so overwhelming, the whole thing seems like one great senile face. And if that face had ever known anything worth knowing, it had forgotten it long ago.

A thought occurred to me. Since the sun never has and never will shine in the Nightside, exactly what light is our oversized and eternally full Moon reflecting? A disturbing thought ... for another day.

I looked down at the Nightside, spread out before me like the most seductive whore in the world. Promising everything and anything, her wide smile and inviting eyes hiding the cold calculation in her heart. The Collector belonged in a place like this, where we all know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The Collector could be richer than anyone if he’d only sell the smallest part of his magnificent collection. He could give up running and hiding and settle down in comfort. But he’d never give up his collection. It was all he had.

The more I looked down, the more I could feel the Collector’s presence even if I couldn’t See him. He was there, somewhere. I looked down and down, and my Sight plunged suddenly through the packed streets and further on down, into the places below the Nightside. I ignored the World Beneath, and the subterranean galleries, and the worms of the Earth, following a trail I could sense, if not put a name to. My Sight led me on, like a hound hot on a scent. And all at once I knew where the Collector had gone to ground this time.

The many tunnels and platforms and stations of the Underground rail system spread out spiralling before me, an endless series of branching and interconnecting tunnels, twisting and turning through the bedrock, sometimes diving dangerously deep. I could See travellers on their platforms, and trains roaring through their tunnels, blinking on and off as they dropped in and out of other-dimensional short cuts, to take them to places that weren’t really places. And there, hidden quietly away in the heart of the system, deep in the insanely complicated mess of new and old stations, was the Collector’s new secret lair.

My first clue was heavy-duty magical shields where there shouldn’t have been any. My Sight drifted lightly through the defences, and immediately I Saw signs of life and power and arcane energies emanating from a shut-down station no-one had used in years. There are a great many stations in the Underground that no-one visits any more. Replaced or abandoned, or sealed off and forgotten because they’d become too dangerous, or disturbing. Just like the Collector, to hide his precious collection in a place no-one would want to go. Essentially he now had his own private station, no longer listed on any destinations board, that no-one could get to because they didn’t know where to tell the train to stop.

I eased out through his shields, and shot back up into the light-studded night. I dropped back into my own head and shut down my Sight, carefully re-establishing my mental shields. It’s never safe to keep an open mind in the Nightside; you never know what might walk in. I told Larry where we had to go to find the Collector and hopefully Tommy. Larry nodded. We were on our way to rescue his long-lost brother, and go face-to-face with one of the most dangerous men in the Nightside, in his own lair, but there wasn’t a trace of emotion in the dead man’s face or his cold blue eyes. He’d said often enough that the dead only had room for one emotion at a time. And he was still running on vengeance.

We walked through the rain, not speaking to one another, and entered Cheyne Walk Station. We paid Charon his price, acquired our tickets, and went down into the Underground. There was a time they’d let me ride for free, but nothing lasts forever; least of all gratitude in the Nightside. The crowds seemed thicker than ever, pushing and jostling through the packed tunnels, oblivious to everything but the needs and pressures that drove them. Larry led the way, opening up a path with the impact of his blunt, unfeeling frame, while I wandered along behind, thinking my own thoughts. The air was hot and close, with steam rising from people’s damp clothes. There was fresh graffiti on the walls. I don’t know where people find the energy. Or the wit. Walker moves in mysterious ways, Don’t let them out of the mirrors! Dagon is back, and this time it’s personal. And, in very neat, educated handwriting: If this is consensus reality, some of us are cheating.

There were even new T-shirts on sale, courtesy of Harry Fabulous, the Nightside’s premiere con man, fixer, and Go To man for everything that’s bad for you. He’d set up a stall at the bottom of the escalators and was busy being his usual effervescent, bullshitting self, with a big happy smile for everyone, only slightly undermined by dark, desperate eyes. Harry had undergone a close encounter of the spiritual kind, and it showed. I wasn’t surprised to find him in the Underground. Harry never stayed anywhere long because someone was always after him. He might or might not have actually reformed, but there were still any number of old creditors and aggrieved past customers very keen to track him down and have a few words with him.

He was currently wearing a T-shirt that said bluntly, No Questions, No Refunds, over a pair of cheap knock-off Levis and even-less-convincing trainers. He was doing everything but sing and dance for his supper, thrusting his bagged T-shirts into people’s faces as they passed. The display frame at his side boasted shirts with such messages as Go Down Lilith! Hell Is Other Drivers. The Eyes of Walker Are Upon You, And the slightly disturbing Everyone’s Damned Except Me and My Dog. Harry recognised Larry and me as we approached, tensed for a moment as though considering running, then settled for an extra-wide smile and a studied pretence that he was actually glad to see us.

“Hello, Harry,” I said. “Keeping busy?”

“Oh, you know how it is, Mr. Taylor,” said Harry, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “Make a bit here, make a bit there ... All strictly legit, of course, these days. The hereafter seems so much closer than it used to be.”

“Lot of that about,” Larry said solemnly.

“Heard anything about the Collector, Harry?” I said casually.

He tensed again, his eyes blinking rapidly. “The Collector, Mr. Taylor? Not as such ... But a lot of people have been asking after him just recently. Some of them quite official if you know what I mean.”

“But you didn’t tell them anything, did you, Harry?” I said.

“I never tell anyone anything, Mr. Taylor. Bad for business. Speaking of which, can I point out that you are quite definitely scaring off my customers, and I do have a living to make...”

“Be good, Harry,” I said, moving off. “For goodness’ sake.”

Larry and I made our way down, heading for the more dangerous platforms and the more dangerous destinations. The crowds began to thin out. We passed a whole new bunch of buskers. A burning man stood stiffly among leaping blue-white flames that blackened and split his flesh but failed to consume him, singing a wistful song of unrequited love. A blind busker sang a torch song in Greek, about his mother. And a shadow blasted onto a wall sang a sad song in Japanese. I dropped them all a few coins without getting too close. Larry ignored them.

When we finally got to the deepest platform of all, it was practically empty. Only a couple of knights in dark armour, grim and threatening. They both bore Satanic markings on their breast-plates, daubed in fresh blood. Deep red flames burned behind the eye-slits of their steel helms, following Larry and me as we passed. I couldn’t help remembering King Artur, of Sinister Albion. A different history, where Merlin Satanspawn never did reject his father. King Artur was currently missing, presumed killed by Walker. I wondered whether I’d find the dark King in the Collector’s lair, part of his new collection ...

A tall, naked woman, generously daubed with blue woad, ignored Larry and me completely as we passed, immersed in her Wall Street Journal. A man with a fossilised penis in a glass tube hanging round his neck sat by himself, looking very glum. And a soft ghost drifted along behind us, barely there at all, tugging wistfully at Larry’s sleeve with transparent fingers. Larry just walked faster until he’d left it behind.

We stopped at the end of the platform, and I looked thoughtfully at the destinations board on the wall opposite. All the usual stations on the Infernal Line, from the well-known halts like Shadows Fall, to the disturbing Red Lodge, to the enigmatic Slaughter Towen. But the more I stared at the board, the more my gift insisted there ought to be one more name, at the very end of the line. A very old name, of a place no-one went to any more.

Lud’s Gate.

The next train came rushing in, blasting a wave of displaced air ahead of it, heavy with the scent of attar and myrrh. Deep claw-marks gouged into the side of one carriage were already healing. Nightside trains have to travel strange and dangerous ways to get to some of their destinations. Larry and I got into the carriage nearest the driver’s cab. The other people on the platform decided to wait for the next train. I get that a lot. Larry didn’t even notice. The train waited a moment, just to be sure, then the carriage doors slammed together, and the train set off. The journey was unremarkable, no problems, no attacks, but still no-one got on at any of the other stops. I lounged easily on my seat, while Larry sat stiffly upright, staring straight ahead; and whatever he was thinking didn’t touch his dead face at all.

The train finally reached the end of the line, and slowed to a halt at Slaughter Towen. The carriage doors slid open, and Larry and I didn’t move from our seats. The train huffed and puffed for a bit, waiting for us to make up our minds, and finally I stood up and addressed the blank steel wall that separated us from the driver’s cab. There was no driver, of course. No human driver could stand the strain. In the Nightside, the trains run themselves, and very efficiently, too. The trains are perfectly safe. As long as you’re careful to avoid the mating season.

“Hello, train,” I said cheerfully. “This is John Taylor. And I want to go to the next station. The station no-one goes to any more. I want to go to Lud’s Gate.”

The train powered down. The carriage stopped vibrating, the lights dimmed, and the engine was ominously silent. The train was sulking.

“Take us to Lud’s Gate,” I said, “or I will find out when your holidays are and have them all cancelled.”

There was a long pause, then the train powered up again. The lights blazed, the carriage doors slammed shut, and the engine made a series of rude noises before engaging. The train set off, and I smiled a bit as I sat down again. Larry looked at me.

“You fight really dirty, don’t you?”

“You just have to know how to talk to them,” I said solemnly.

The train ran smoothly through the dark, not turning at all; heading in a remorseless straight line for Lud’s Gate. Once, something outside in the dark ran its fingernails along the side of our carriage, a soft scraping sound that made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Larry stared straight ahead, as though he hadn’t heard anything; and perhaps he hadn’t. There are some things only the living can hear because warnings are wasted on the dead. We travelled on for ages, the air growing steadily colder. Frost appeared on the inside of the carriage, forming harsh abstract faces on the inner walls. I huddled inside my trench coat, my hands thrust deep in my pockets. Larry didn’t feel any of it. Not even when frost began to form whorled patterns on his dead face.

The train suddenly screeched to a halt, rocking Larry and me back and forth in our seats. The carriage doors jerked open, a few inches at a time, splinters of ice falling from the frozen metal frame. I got to my feet and moved over to the doors, standing well back as I looked out. Larry got up and stood behind me. Outside, on the platform, the lights were a corrupt yellow glow, more organic than electric, like something from the sick-room. Dust and cobwebs everywhere, and deep dark shadows. Hot sweaty air gusted in through the open carriage doors, heavy with the stench of dying things. The frost on the doors melted and ran away. Larry moved forward to leave the carriage, but I stopped him with a raised hand. There was no-one out there on the platform, no obvious threat, but still I felt uneasy. Someone was watching.

Larry stirred impatiently, and I made myself step out of the carriage and onto the platform. Sweltering hot air hit me like a slap in the face. Larry was at my side, glaring about him. The frost on his dead face quickly melted, running away like unfelt tears. The carriage doors jerked together behind us, and the train roared away, getting the hell out of the station before something bad happened. Ahead of me, the old station sign of Lud’s Gate was set out in heavy black Gothic lettering. The bottom of the sign was soaked in old dried blood.

Thick mats of vine and ivy covered the station walls, stirring slowly when I looked at them, agitating in long green tremors beside me as I walked slowly down the platform. Fierce bright eyes peered out of the heavy greenery. Black flowers thrust up through the platform floor, turning slowly to watch as Larry and I passed them by. One of them hissed at Larry, and he deliberately stepped on it, crushing it under his heel.

“Plants should know their place,” he said loudly.

His voice didn’t echo at all in the quiet. The silence was so deep and long-established it seemed to swallow up all new noises, including our footsteps. It was like walking through a painting of a place rather than the place itself. Larry stopped abruptly and glared about him.

“Is this supposed to scare me?” he said loudly. “I’m dead! My house is spookier than this!”

“Way too much information,” I murmured. “And so much for the element of surprise.”

“Leave it out,” said Larry. “This place is deader than I am. Whatever happened here, it’s over. We missed it. This ... is just the mess it left behind. I want the Collector. Where is he?”

“He must know we’re here by now,” I said. “But it’s a big station. The entrance to his lair could be concealed anywhere. And I really don’t feel like wandering around ... Lud’s Gate had a really bad reputation back in the day, before the old Authorities sent a squad in to shut it down.”

“Hadleigh led that squad,” said Larry. “Back when he was the Man ... Didn’t you know?”

“No,” I said. “But the Nightside does so love its little coincidences.”

“Couldn’t you ... ?”

“No, I couldn‘t,” I said quickly. “The Collector knows me of old. The number of times I’ve casually wandered into his secret hideouts and made a complete nuisance of myself, he’s bound to have set up booby-traps, keyed to my gift.”

“That’s right,” said Larry. “You and he go way back. What’s he like?”

“Crazy, spiteful, and vindictive, and dangerous with it,” I said. “He’s lots of other things, too, as the mood takes him, but those are the ones to bear in mind.”

“I meant,” said Larry, “what’s he like as a person?”

I thought about it. “I’m not sure how much of a person is left any more. He didn’t always use to be like this. He had a name once, a position, friends, and a life. But one by one he gave them all up to pursue his obsessions. And now he’s just the Collector.”

“So how do we find him?”

“We won’t have to,” I said. “He’ll find us.”

We both looked round sharply as a spotlight stabbed down out of nowhere, a brilliant shimmering pillar of light filling one of the exit arches, clear and sharp against the rotten corrupt light of the platform. And in that spotlight, glaring at me: the Collector. A barely medium-height man, badly overweight, wrapped in a simple white Roman tunic. His face was red and sweaty, his piggy eyes were fixed solely on me, and his podgy hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.

“John Taylor,” he said heavily. “Once again you come knock knock knocking at my door. How did I end up with you as my personal cross to bear? It’s not as if I shot an albatross. And which part of secret lair do you find so hard to comprehend? If I wanted visitors, I’d advertise. And who the hell’s that?”

“That’s Larry Oblivion,” I said. “You’ll have to excuse his manners. He’s dead.”

The Collector looked Larry over and shrugged. “I’ve already got a zombie. And a lich. I used to have a mummy, but the damn thing fell apart when I tried to steam-clean its bandages. What do you want this time, Taylor? Whatever it is, you can’t have it. I’m very busy right now.”

“What’s with the new outfit?” I said cunningly. The Collector never could resist showing off his latest acquisitions.

“Oh, this old thing?” said the Collector. “It is rather fine, isn’t it? This is the very tunic Pontius Pilate was wearing when he washed his hands. Would you believe I found it tossed away in a laundry basket? If people can’t be trusted to look after things, they shouldn’t be allowed to have them.” He scowled suddenly as he realised he’d allowed himself to be distracted. “Why can’t you just leave me alone, Taylor? What did I ever do to you?”

“You know what you did,” I said, and he looked away, not meeting my gaze.

“That was a long time ago,” he said. “How many times must a man pay for his sins? There ought to be a statute of limitations on guilt.” He glared at me sullenly. “You can’t keep on dropping in on me, whenever you feel like it! If I wanted company, I’d put a personal ad in the Inquirer! Oh hell, tell me what you want this time, and let’s get on with it. I’d keep guard dogs, but they pee on the exhibits.”

“You were right,” Larry said to me. “Crazy as a bag of arse-holes.”

“Shut up, grave dodger,” said the Collector.

I cut in quickly. “The last time we met, Collector, you said you were busy with something new. And now you say you’re still busy ... I have to ask: have you taken on a new interest? Something ... different?”

The Collector stared at me for a moment. He seemed honestly puzzled. “No ... Not really. I’ve spent most of my time recently trying to pin down a particularly elusive Arthurian artefact that isn’t when it’s supposed to be, but that’s not enough to bring you here ... So, what is it, Taylor? Spit it out!”

“Word is, you’ve started collecting people,” I said bluntly. “Unique, important, and significant individuals. Larry thinks you’ve got his brother Tommy here, because of his gift. Have you?”

The Collector actually gawked at me. “That’s it? That’s why you’re here? Are you crazy? What the hell would I want with people? Nasty, noisy, demanding things. Which part of I live alone in secret lairs as far from bloody people as I can get have you failed to grasp? I collect rare and fascinating objects, from all ages of history. Mainly to protect them from other people, who wouldn’t appreciate them. I like things. You know where you are with things. Oh ... come and take a look, then, if that’s what it will take to get rid of you. You can have half an hour to admire my collection and satisfy yourselves that I’m not stockpiling people, then I’m throwing you out of here.”

He turned and stalked away into the recesses of the station, and his spotlight went with him. Larry and I hurried after. We’d barely passed through the exit arch when a dozen of the Collector’s personal security robots appeared out of nowhere to stride along beside us. I dropped a warning hand on Larry’s arm to keep him from reacting, but he shrugged me off. All his attention was fixed on the Collector’s back. He hadn’t believed a single word the Collector had said. I wasn’t sure myself. Walker wasn’t usually wrong about things like this, but ... the Collector was right. He really didn’t care about people. Only things.

Like the elegantly long-legged rococo cat-faced robots that were walking with us, which he’d picked up from some future Chinese time-line. Gleaming curves of metal, more works of art than functional servants, topped with stylised cat faces, complete with jutting steel whiskers and slit-pupilled eyes that glowed bright green in the gloom. They moved with an eerie grace, tap-tapping along on their tiny metal paw-like feet. Now and again, one of the robots would flex its steel-clawed hands, as though considering what it would like to do if it wasn’t bound by the Collector’s commands.

It was dark all around us now, the only illumination spilling out from the Collector’s spotlight.

“I have to be careful,” the Collector said abruptly. “There are people out there who would stop at nothing to rob me of my lovely treasures. Other collectors, rogue traders—thieves, the lot of them!”

“Indeed,” I murmured. “How dare they steal the things you stole first?”

“I appreciate them!” the Collector said haughtily. “And I never give up anything that’s mine. My lovely things.”

Light flared up around us, and Lud’s Gate Station was gone. A new warm, golden glow revealed a huge warehouse, sprawling away in all directions. Massive glass display cases held all the wonders of the world, arranged in rank upon rank for as far as the eye could see, along with shelves and shelves of curios and collectables, the popular trash of decades past and future, everything rare and valuable from every period of Time. It was a maze, a labyrinth, of rarities and marvels, toys and trinkets, objets d‘art and objets trouvés ... If it was bright and shiny, the Collector had an eye for it.

“You can look,” the Collector said grudgingly. “But don’t touch! Every time I let you in, Taylor, things get broken. But see for yourself: there are no people here! Unless someone’s tried to break in again. I haven’t checked the traps recently.”

I looked at Larry and had to grin. His dead face finally held an emotion, and it was as much shock as awe. Like many people, he’d heard about the Collector’s legendary hoard, but the reality was so much bigger. The Collector had promised us half an hour, but you couldn’t manage a proper look around in under a month. Not that I felt the need to examine everything. If the Collector had started picking up people, they’d have been set out on prominent display, in pride of place, so he could gloat over them. And there weren’t any.

I wandered down the aisle before me, Larry stumbling along behind. I pointed out a few things of particular interest. A stuffed waterbaby, covered in thorns; a frozen water ghost in a refrigerated container; and the original sketches for the Turin Shroud. Two of the cat robots followed us at a respectful distance, ready to tell on us to the Collector if we got too close to anything. After a while, I stopped before a diorama of stuffed giant albino penguins and looked at Larry.

“Walker lied,” I said.

“It would appear so,” said Larry. “But why would he lie about my brother?”

“The devil always lies,” I said. “Except when a truth can hurt you more. But you’re right; why would he lie about this?”

The Collector laughed harshly, and we both looked around. He was watching from a safe distance, surrounded by his cat robots.

“If you’ve started trusting Walker, you’re really letting the side down, Taylor. He always has a plan inside a scheme inside an agenda, and he’ll tell you whatever he needs to tell you to get you to do what he wants you to do. Face it, Taylor; he sent you on a wild goose chase to get you out of his way; and you fell for it.”

“Looks like it,” I said. “Sorry to have troubled you. Show us the way out, and we’ll be going.”

“No,” said the Collector. “I don’t think so.” He leaned casually against an old-fashioned grandfather clock, with a cobwebbed human skeleton propped up inside it. His gaze was clear and cold, and he didn’t seem nearly as out of it as he had before. “I’ve been thinking, Taylor, and it seems to me ... that you owe me far more than I owe you. I lost my leg to those giant insects at the end of Time, all because of you.”

Larry looked at me. “You do get around, don’t you?”

“I’ve replaced the leg a dozen times,” said the Collector, still glaring at me. “I’ve used machines, cloned tissues, even regrown it using a lizard serum; but it never feels right. I still have nightmares about the insects eating my skin and burrowing into my flesh, while you stood by and did nothing.”

“Is that right?” said Larry.

“Sort of,” I said. “There was more to it than that. He was planning to do something far worse...”

“Shut up!” said the Collector. “This is my moment, not yours! If you’d just left me alone, I might have let bygones be bygones ... but no, here you are again, intruding and interfering and insulting me in my own home. Relying on my guilt over a few minor past indiscretions to keep me in line ... Well, I have had enough of you, John Taylor. I don’t care if you are Charles’s son. I don’t care about Charles or Henry or your mother, or any other ... people. I don’t care about people! They always let you down. I like my things, my wonderful things. You can depend on them to be what they are and nothing else, forever and ever. So I’m going to flush you out of my life, Taylor, because I don’t care any more.”

“You see,” I said to Larry. “Told you that you and he had a lot in common.”

“Yes, but I’m dead,” said Larry. “What’s his excuse?”

The Collector actually stamped his sandalled foot in rage, his face flushed an unhealthy shade of purple. “You never take me seriously, Taylor! You always have to make fun of me, and my marvellous collection! You never appreciated me!”

“You looked after me, sometimes, when I was a kid and my dad couldn‘t,” I said. “I remember that, Uncle Mark. I appreciated that man. Whatever happened to him?”

“No. Don’t you dare,” said the Collector. “That was a long time ago. We were all different people then.”

“And look what’s become of us,” I said. “All your travels in time, and you couldn’t see what was coming? That man with his whole future before him ... He couldn’t avoid ending up a lonely, sad, old man, surrounded by things?”

“Kill them,” the Collector said to his robots. “Kill John Taylor, and rip his dead friend to pieces.”

The cat robots started forward, inhumanly graceful, taking their time, closing in from all sides to leave us no chance of escape. Their slow, studied approach had something in it of the cruelty of cats. Larry pulled out his magic wand, started to say something, then stopped abruptly.

“That won’t work here,” I said, looking quickly about for possible escape routes and maybe even a weapon. “The Collector has wards in place for unexpected items like yours.”

“Pretty little thing,” said the Collector, from behind the safety of his robots. “Elven, isn’t it? Thought so. Wasted on a dead thug like you, Oblivion. But it’ll make a fine addition to my new elf annex. And you needn’t try raising your gift, either, Taylor; I’ve got shaped charges hanging on the air, bristling with anticipation, ready to do really quite appalling things if you even peek through your inner eye. Should have set them up years ago.”

“Come on, Collector,” I said, doing my best to sound brave and heroic and not in any way panicking. “You can’t kill me. You know lots of people will track you down to avenge me.”

“I’ll bet a hell of a lot more will celebrate,” said the Collector. “Hell. Half of the Nightside will probably throw a party. With streamers and balloons. Besides, no-one will ever know it was me. You and your unpleasant associate will join my collection, as very small portions in a series of very small boxes. Then maybe I’ll be able to get some proper sleep at last.”

I’d looked everywhere and run out of options. The cat robots had covered every possible escape route, and there were no obvious weapons out on display. None of the usual cursed needles, singing swords, or interstellar blasters. Not even anything heavy enough to pass for a blunt instrument. The robots were all around us now and pressing closer. The Collector didn’t allow them weapons, in case they might damage any of his beloved exhibits, but they still had their inhuman strength and wickedly sharp claws.

“Don’t suppose you’ve a gun on you, by any chance?” said Larry.

“I don’t like guns,” I said. “Besides, most of the time I’m smart enough to avoid getting caught in situations where I might need them. I really thought I had the Collector intimidated ... or at the very least, sufficiently guilt-tripped ...”

“On the whole, I’d have to say he doesn’t look intimidated,” said Larry. “And no; I don’t have a gun on me either. I’ve grown far too dependent on my wand since I died.”

“Yes,” I said. “Tricky.”

“Well, don’t just stand there; do something! Those robots are getting bloody close! I do not want to spend the rest of my life as kitty litter! I’m dead, not invulnerable.”

“I told you that,” I said. “And will you please stop hyperventilating? It’s really very unattractive in a dead person. Dead Boy never makes a fuss like this when we work together.”

“Dead Boy is crazy!”

“There is that, yes ... I think we should grab some of the more fragile-looking exhibits, and build a barricade between us and the robots. The Collector won’t let them damage anything.”

“Are you sure about that?” said Larry.

“I’m betting my life on it.”

It didn’t take long to drag some of the shelves and display cases into place around us, pushing the more delicate objects to the front. A glass phallus from the Court of Cleo patra, engraved with snake scales; dainty china butterflies from the Court of Versailles, with tiny erotica hand-painted on the wings; and half a dozen paper ghosts from Hiroshima. And sure enough, once the Collector realised what we were doing, he stopped his robots in their tracks rather than have them break anything. Things would always matter more to him than any human emotions, even revenge. He glared at us, and we glared right back at him, and there was no telling where the stalemate might have taken us, if we hadn’t been distracted by the sound of deliberate, approaching footsteps. We all looked round sharply, and there was Walker; strolling through the packed shelves and cases, as calm and composed and elegantly dangerous as ever.

The cat robots immediately forgot all about Larry and me and turned as one to focus on Walker. The Collector gestured urgently for them to stand still, and they did. Walker ignored them completely, smiling and nodding to the three of us as though we’d just happened to meet in the street. He walked through the still ranks of robots and finally came to a halt before the Collector. Walker smiled at him warmly.

“Hello, Mark. Been a while, hasn’t it?”

The Collector scowled at him. “Don’t come the old-chums act with me, Walker. That was a long time ago. We’re both different people now. And don’t try your Voice, either; it won’t work here.”

“Never occurred to me that it would,” murmured Walker.

“How did you find me?” said the Collector, plaintively. “I put a lot of hard work into choosing this site and hiding it from unfriendly eyes.”

“It wasn’t difficult,” said Walker. “I just followed John.”

“I didn’t see you!” I said.

“People don‘t, unless I want them to,” said Walker.

“You lied to me,” I said. “You used me to find the Collector for you!”

“Needs must, when the Devil’s knock knock knocking on your door,” said Walker.

The cat robots were still watching Walker with their glowing green eyes, almost visibly straining against the orders that held them motionless. They knew a real threat to their master when they saw one. Walker ignored them all with magnificent disdain. The Collector and Walker stood face-to-face, and when the Collector finally spoke, his voice was quieter, and more human, than I expected.

“It has been a long time, hasn’t it, Henry? But with your resources, you could have found me at any time if you’d really wanted to. I’ve always known that. Why did you stay away so long? We might have been on opposing sides, but that never stopped you with other people. Why did you wait until you were dying to come and see me? Yes, I know; of course I know. All those years we were friends, and I had to hear it from someone else? What were you thinking? Why didn’t you come to me the moment you found out? I could have come up with something! I have all of Time to look in!”

“But I am running out of Time,” said Walker. “And I couldn’t bring myself to trust anything you might find for me. Our relationship has always been ... complicated.”

“And whose fault is that?” said the Collector. “I had such plans, such dreams, before you swept me along with your damned ambitions!”

Walked nodded slightly, accepting the point. “And what have you made of your life, Mark? All the great things you boasted you were going to do ... and you gave it all up to collect toys?”

“What have you done with your life, Henry?” the Collector said angrily. “You wanted to fight the establishment, and instead you became it. You’re the Man now; everyone knows that. You’ve become everything we despised! And for what? To be king of shit heap? Caretaker of a freak show? Errand and bully-boy for the Powers That Be!”

Walker didn’t flinch once, even as the Collector spat hot, hateful words at him. He waited politely for the Collector to run down, then spoke calmly and reasonably in return.

“Time changes all things, Mark. You of all people should understand that. And you ... have become too dangerous and too unpredictable to be left running around loose, making trouble when I am gone. I did help towards making you the man you are; and that makes you my responsibility.”

“I made myself what I am,” snapped the Collector. “I don’t owe you anything!”

“You never did listen, Mark,” murmured Walker, almost sadly. “This isn’t about what you owe me.”

“You always did have too high an opinion of yourself,” said the Collector. “I made myself the greatest Collector in the Nightside, through my own hard work and determination. Despite everything you or anyone else could do to stop me!”

“I should have tried harder,” said Walker. “But I always had so much else on my plate, and you were my friend, so ... If I’d known you were going to end up like this, I would have done something. I can’t help feeling this is all my fault.”

“What are you talking about?” said the Collector.

“Oh, wake up, Mark!” snapped Walker. “Look around you! What kind of a life is this for anyone? No family, no children, no friends; just ... things?”

“You have family, children, and friends,” said the Collector. “Did they make you happy, Henry? Did they make you content? We were never going to be happy, or content, or satisfied. It wasn’t in our nature.”

“We have come a long way from the idealistic young men we once were,” said Walker. “When did we lose our innocence, Mark?”

The Collector laughed harshly. “We didn’t lose it, Henry; we threw it away first chance we got. Don’t waste my time with nostalgia just because you’re dying. Those days, and those people, are long gone.”

“No,” said Walker. “That was yesterday. And I would give everything I own to have it back.”

“What do you want here?” said the Collector. “I’m busy.”

“I came to say good-bye,” said Walker.

He was standing right in front of his old friend, smiling kindly, holding the Collector’s eyes with his, when the knife he’d concealed in his left hand slammed between the Collector’s ribs. The cat robots started forward, and Walker’s other hand opened to reveal his gold pocket-watch. It snapped open, and the Timeslip inside snatched up every one of the cat robots and whisked them away, all in a moment.

The Collector cried out once as the knife went in, sounding as much surprised as anything. He grabbed Walker with both arms, pulling him close. Walker let go of the knife, and held him, too. The Collector’s legs buckled, blood pouring thickly down his side, staining the old Roman tunic. Walker lowered the Collector slowly to the ground. The Collector tried to say something, and blood ran from his mouth. Walker snapped his gold watch shut and tucked it back into his waistcoat pocket. He never once took his gaze off the Collector’s dying face. He knelt down and helped the Collector to lie back on the floor, in a spreading pool of blood. The Roman tunic was soaked with gore now. The Collector clutched at Walker with weakening hands, looking confused.

“It’s all right, Mark,” said Walker, quietly, tenderly. “I’m here, Mark.”

“Henry ... ?”

“It’s all right. I’m here. I’ll stay with you.”

Walker looked at me. “You can go now. I don’t need you any more. Leave me here with my friend.”

Larry didn’t want to go, but I hustled him out. In his current mood, Walker was capable of anything. I only looked back once, to see Walker kneeling beside his dying friend, holding one of the Collector’s hands in both of his, saying good-bye. One dying man to another.