Paths Not Taken

She shook me roughly, then glared at Lilith. Some of my hearing came back, though I still couldn't feel Suzie's arm around me.

"How could you, you bitch! He's your son!"

"It was easy," said Lilith. "After all, I have so many children."

She beckoned with one pale, imperious hand, and from all sides her monsters came creeping forward again, crashing and slumping out of the streets and alleyways from which they'd been watching. There were lots of them, even after all those Suzie and I had killed, more than enough to deal with two foolish humans. I fought to keep my head up, watching helplessly as the monsters circled slowly around Suzie and me, laughing in their various terrible ways, forms hideous and powerful beyond hope or reason, monsters from the darkest pits of creation. Some of them called out, in awful voices I could still somehow understand, boasting of the terrible things they would do to Suzie and to me for the destruction of their kindred and because they could. They promised us torment and horror, and death so long in the coming we would beg for it before they finally chose to release us. They would hurt us and hurt us until we couldn't stand it any more; and then they'd show us what pain really was.

And I thought, Not Suzie... I'll die first, before I let that happen...

She drew a slender knife from the top of her boot, and made a long shallow cut along the inside of her left wrist. I gaped at her stupidly, and she slapped the cut wrist against my open lips. Her blood filled my mouth, and I swallowed automatically.

"Werewolf blood," said Suzie, her face close to mine, her voice sharp and insistent, cutting through the fog in my head. "To buy us some time. I can't save us, John, and there's no-one here to act as the cavalry, this time. Only you can save us. So I'll fight them, for as long as I can, to buy you time to come up with some last throw of the dice. A miracle would be good, if you've got one about you."

She put the knife away and stood up to face the crowding monsters. She held her shotgun with familiar ease and sneered at Lilith, back sitting on her Throne. Suzie Shooter, Shotgun Suzie, stood tall and defiant as the monsters surged forward, and I don't think I've ever seen a braver thing in my life.

And maybe it was the werewolf blood, or maybe it was her faith in me, but I stood up, too, and looked at Lilith. For the first time she looked surprised, and uncertain. She opened her mouth to say something, but I laughed in her face. And using the very last of my reserves of strength, I forced open my i

The monsters stopped their advance at Lilith's horrified cry and looked around, confused. My back straightened and my legs grew strong again. My head cleared, and I laughed again; and something in that laugh made the monsters draw back even further. And still the power roared out of Lilith, and into me, for all her struggles. Suzie gri

"One day," I said to her, "all your precious monsters will get together and turn on you, banishing you from your own creation. When that happens, do remember that I made it possible, by weakening you here and now. They'll throw you out because, deep down, the only freedom you believe in is the freedom you dispense to others. You could never allow anyone else to be truly free, free of you, because then they might some day grow powerful enough to have authority over you ... You'll lose everything, and all because you never could play nicely with others."

She looked up at me, with her eyes darker than the night. "I will see you again."

"Yes, Mother," I said. "You will. But not for thousands of years. In my time, on my territory. Still, here's a little something, to remember me by."

And I kicked her in the face. She fell backwards, and I turned my back on her. I looked at Suzie, and she gri

Epilogue

Back in Strangefellows, the oldest bar in the world.

She said, "So, what do we do now?"

I said "We put together an army of every Power and Being and major player in the whole damned Nightside, and turn them into an army I can throw at Lilith's throat. I'll use my gift to track down wherever she's hiding herself now, then... we do whatever we have to, to destroy her. Because that's all there is left, now."

"Even though she's your mother?"

"She was never my mother," I said. "Not in any way that mattered."

"Even with an army to back us up, we could still lay waste to most of the Nightside, fighting to bring her down."

"She'll do it anyway, if we don't do something," I said.

"I've seen what will happen if we don't stop her, and anything would be better than that."

I didn't look at her scarred face. I didn't think of her half-dead, half-mad, come back through Time to kill me, with the awful Speaking Gun grafted where her right forearm used to be.

"What if the others don't want to get involved?"

"I'll make them want to."

"And end up just like your mother?"

I sighed, and looked away. "I'm tired, Suzie. I want... I need for all this to be over."

"It should be one hell of a battle." Shotgun Suzie tucked her thumbs under the bandoliers of bullets that crossed her chest. "I can't wait."

I smiled at her fondly. "I'll bet you even take that shotgun to bed with you, don't you?"

She looked at me with her cold, calm expression. "Someday, you just might find out. My love."