The Unnatural Inquirer

I concentrated, waking my third eye, my private eye, and the world started to open up and reveal its secrets to me…and then I cried out in shock and pain as a sudden harsh pressure shot through my head, slamming my i

“Sorry,” I said, trying to ease the scowl I could feel darkening my face. “Something just happened. It would appear that Someone or Something big and nasty doesn’t want me using my gift. They’ve shut me down. I can’t See a damned thing.”

“I didn’t know anyone could do that,” said Bettie.

“It’s not something I’m keen to advertise,” I said. “Has to be a Major Player of some kind. I hope it’s not the Devil again…”

“Again?” said Bettie delightedly. “Oh, John, you do lead such a fascinating life! Tell me all about it!”

“Not a chance in Hell,” I said. “I don’t discuss other client’s cases. Anyway, it’s not like I’m helpless without my gift. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way: asking questions, following leads, and tracking down clues.”

“But…if a Major Player is involved, doesn’t that mean the Afterlife Recording must be the real deal?” said Bettie. “Or else, why would they get involved?”

“They’re involved for the same reason we are,” I said. “Because they want to discover whether the Recording is the real deal, or not. Or…because Someone wants us to think it’s real…Nothing’s ever simple in the Nightside.”

And then I stopped and looked thoughtfully at Bettie Divine. There was something subtly different about her. Some small but definite change in her appearance since we’d left the U

“Ah,” said Bettie. “You’ve noticed. The details of my appearance are always changing. Part of my natural glamour, as the daughter of a succubus. Don’t let it throw you, dear; I’m always the same underneath.”

“How very reassuring,” I said. “We need somewhere quiet, to think and talk this through…somewhere no-one will bother us. Got it. The Hawk’s Wind Bar and Grille isn’t far from here.”

“I know it!” said Bettie, clapping her little hands together delightedly. “The spirit of the sixties! Groovy, baby!”

“You’re like this all the time, aren’t you?” I said.

“Of course!”

“I will make your Editor pay for this…”

“Lot of people say that,” said Bettie Divine.

The Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille started out as a swinging café and social watering hole for all the brightest lights of the 1960s. Everyone who was anyone made the scene at the Hawk’s Wind, to plot and deal and spread the latest gossip. It was wild and fabulous, and almost too influential for its own good. It burned down in 1970, possibly self-immolation in protest at the splitting up of the Beatles, but it was too loved and revered to stay dead for long. It came back as a ghost, the spirit of a building haunting its own location. People’s belief keeps it real and solid, and these days it serves as a repository for all that was best of the sixties.

You can get brands of drink and food and music that haven’t existed for forty years in the rest of the world at the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille, and famous people from the sixties are always dropping in, through various forms of Time travel, and other less straightforward means. It’s not for everyone, but then, what is?

I pushed open the Hindu latticed front door and led the way in. Bettie gasped and oohed at the psychedelic patterns on the walls, the rococo Day-Glo neon signs, and the Pop Art posters of Jimi, Che, and Timothy Leary. The air was thick with the scents of jasmine, joss sticks, and what used to be called jazz cigarettes. A complicated steel contraption hissed loudly in one corner as it pumped out several different colours of steam and dispensed brands of coffee with enough caffeine to blow the top of your head clean off. Hawk’s Wind coffee could wake the dead, or at least keep them dancing for hours. I sat Bettie down at one of the Formica-covered tables and lowered myself cautiously onto the rickety plastic chair.

Revolving coloured lights made pretty patterns across walls daubed in swirls of primary colours, while a juke-box the size of a Tardis pumped out one groovy hit after another, currently the Four Tops’ “Reach Out, I’ll Be There.” Which has always sounded just a bit sinister to me, for a love song. All around us sat famous faces from the Past, Present, and Futures, most there to just dig the scene. Bettie swivelled back and forth in her chair, trying to take it all in at once.

“Don’t stare,” I said. “People will think you’re a reporter.”

“But this is so amazing!” said Bettie, all but bouncing up and down in her chair. “I’ve never been here before. Heard about it, of course, but…people like me never get to come to places like this. We only get to write about them. Didn’t I hear this place had been destroyed?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Several times. But it always comes back. You can’t keep a good ghost down, not when so many people believe in it.”

The juke-box’s music changed to Manfred Ma

A tall and splendid waitress dressed in a collection of pink plastic straps and thigh-high white plastic boots strode over to our table to take our order. Her impressive bust bore a name badge with the initials EV. She leaned forward over the table, the better to show off her amazing cleavage.

“Save it for the tourists, Phred,” I said kindly. “What are you doing working here? The monster-hunting business gone slack?”

She shrugged prettily. “You know how it is, John. My work is always seasonal, and a girl has to eat. You wait till the trolls start swarming again in the Underground and see how fast they remember my phone number. Now, what can I do you for? We’ve got this amazing green tea in from Tibet, though it’s a bit greasy; or we’ve got some freshly baked fudge brownies that will not only open your doors of perception, but blow the bloody things right off their hinges.”

“Just two Cokes,” I said firmly.

“You want curly-wurly straws with that?”

“Of course,” I said. “It’s all part of the experience.”

“Excuse me,” said Bettie, “but why does he call you Phred, when your initials are EV? What does the EV stand for?”

“Ex-Virgin,” said Phred. “And I stand for pretty much anything.”

And off she went to get our order, swaying her hips through the packed tables perhaps just a little more than was strictly necessary.

“You know the most interesting people, John,” said Bettie.

I gri

“All anyone knows is the name, Pen Donavon,” said Bettie, frowning prettily as she concentrated. “No-one in the offices has ever met him; our only contact has been by phone. He called out of the blue and almost got turned away. We get a lot of crank calls. But he was very insistent, and once we realised he was serious, he got bumped up to Scoop, who in turn passed him on to the Editor, who made the deal for exclusive rights.”