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"What can I do, Eddie?" I said desperately, but he couldn't hear me.
"Only one thing you can do," the Collector said reasonably. "Kill him. Put him out of his long misery. Except, of course, you can't. This is after all the remarkable Razor Eddie, who ca
I pushed his hateful words aside, concentrating on my gift. If there was anything that could still kill Razor Eddie, and give him peace at last, my gift would find it. It didn't take long. Pretty obvious, once I had the answer. The only thing that could kill Eddie was his own straight razor. The weapon that no-one ever saw. I already knew it wouldn't be anywhere about his person, or he'd have used it on himself before now. The insects couldn't separate him from it, either. Eddie and his Razor were bound together by a pact only a god could break. I focused my gift further, and there it was, in the one place the insects could put it that Eddie couldn't reach it. They'd buried it deep inside his own body, in his guts.
I made myself act without thinking, without feeling. I thrust my hand into one of the insects' exit wounds, forcing it open, and then drove my hand deep into Eddie's guts, not listening as he screamed,
holding him down with all my weight as he kicked. Joa
"Good-bye, Eddie," I said softly. "I'm so sorry. Trust me. I won't let this happen."
"How very sentimental," said the Collector, "but you haven't really thought this through, have you?" I didn't need to look round to know that he was enjoying every moment of this. "You see, if you destroy the insects' only host, and then remove yourself and the woman from this Time, you will be condemning every species here to extinction. Are you really ready to commit genocide, to wipe out the only living things left on the earth?"
"Hell yes," I said, and Razor Eddie didn't even twitch as I cut his throat, pressing down so hard with the blade that I could feel the steel edge grate against his neckbones. I needed to be sure. Blood pumped out under pressure, soaking his clothes and mine, and the dusty ground around us. Eddie lay there peacefully as he died, and afterwards I held him in my
arms and cried the tears he couldn't. Because for all our differences, and there had been many, he had always been my friend. When the very last of his life went out of him with a sigh, his razor disappeared from my hand. I lowered his body to the ground and clambered unsteadily to my feet. The Collector was looking at me, utterly stupefied.
"Hate creepy-crawlies," I explained.
The insects screamed suddenly; a shrill inhuman sound that filled the purple night. It had taken them a while, but they'd finally understood the significance of what I'd done. The scream rose and rose as more and more of them took it up, until it seemed to be coming from everywhere in the desolate city. I smiled my old smile, my devilish smile, and the Collector flinched at the sight of it. The insects were boiling all around us, pressing right up to the limits of the yellow light. I had just murdered all their future generations ... unless they could find a way to make use of me, and Joa
The Collector cried out suddenly as holes opened up in the ground around his feet. The insects down below weren't intimidated by his light, and they had finally come for him. One of the Collector's legs plunged down into a gaping hole, and he cried out in pain and shock as unseen jaws sank deep into the
meat of his leg. More holes opened up in the ground around me and Joa
We ran past the Collector, who was screaming shrilly as he scrabbled in his suit pockets for something. He finally pulled out a shiny canister, and sprayed the contents down the hole. More of the insects screamed underground, and the Collector was able to pull his leg free. Huge chunks of flesh were missing, the cracked bone clear among red strings of meat. The Collector whimpered, and then sprayed his canister wildly about him as more holes opened up. The light he stood in was flickering unsteadily now as his concentration wavered. He swore briefly, like a disappointed child, and vanished, back into Time. The light snapped off, and the insects charged forward, coming after Joa
Joa
gradually shrinking pool of yellow light. There were some the size of dogs, and some the size of pigs, and I hated them all. Joa
There are lots of them, in the Nightside, with lots of names; from the uber science of the ley lines to the shimmering magic of the Rainbow Run, there have always been roads of glory, hidden from all but the keenest of gazes, holding the substance of the world together with their immaterial energies. If you had the courage to run them, you could gain your heart's desire. Supposedly. And even now, in this desolate and deserted place, the paths of power remained. My gift locked on to one that led right to the Timeslip boundary, and called it up into existence. A bright, vivid, scintillating path appeared before us, and the insects fell back from the new light as though they'd been burned. Joa
But I was already slowing. Using the gift had taken a lot out of me, at the end of a long, hard day. I'd used my gift too often, pushed it too hard, and I
was paying the price now. My head was throbbing so hard I could barely see anything outside of the path, and blood ran steadily from both my nostrils and dripped from my chin. My legs felt very far away. Joa
I was tired and hurting, but even so I was surprised when my legs just suddenly gave out, and I fell. I hit the glory path hard, and small shocks ran through me, none of them enough to get me back on my feet again. So close, the magic was almost painful. The insects surged right up to the edge of the light, staring at me with expressionless compound eyes. Joa