The Unnatural Inquirer

“Of course.”

“Oh, please, please, Ricky sweetie, tell us where he is,” said Bettie, giving him the full fluttering eye-lashes treatment. “I’ll be ever so grateful, I promise.”

Aday smirked triumphantly. “And what makes you think I’ll just give up a valuable piece of information like that?”

“Because she asked you nicely,” I said. “I won’t.”

Aday gave us the Cardinal’s new address, and directions on how to find it. Bettie and I left the Printer’s Devil. She waved good-bye and blew kisses in all directions. I didn’t. I had my dignity to consider.

SIX - Heated Emotions from Unexpected Directions

It’s hard to maintain a reputation for being grim and mysterious when you’re accompanied by a brightly clad young thing, skipping merrily along at your side, holding your hand, and smiling sweetly on one and all. Still, it felt good to have Bettie with me. Her constant enthusiasm and optimism helped relieve a weight and burden I hadn’t even realised I was carrying. She made me feel…alive again.

Following Rick Aday’s directions, we were heading into one of the more seedy areas of the Nightside, where the narrow streets are lined with scruffy little shops and emporiums, where half the street-lights never work, and most of the neon signs have letters missing. The kind of shop where there’s a sale on all the year round, where they specialise in only fairly convincing knock-offs of whatever brand-names are currently fashionable or in demand, where the buyer had better not only beware, but carry a large stick and count his fingers on the way out. Shops that sell tarnished dreams and tacky nightmares, misleading miracles and wondrous devices, most of whose batteries have run down. Bottom feeders, in other words; tourist traps, and home to every cheap and nasty con you can think of. The crowds were just as heavy here, jostling each other off the pavement and shouldering each other out of the way. Everyone loves a bargain.

And then, suddenly, everyone was yelling and ru

“Take a good look,” I said cheerfully to Bettie. “It’s not every day you see so many prominent members of the Exiles Club out in public. Mostly, these aristocratic nobodies prefer to skulk inside their very own members-only club, addressing each other by their old titles because they’re the only ones that will. They trade grievances about lost lands and abandoned kingdoms, how nobody recognises true quality in this dreadful place, and how you just can’t get good servants any more.

“The bald, stooped, and vulturelike figure to Queen Helena’s left is Zog, King of the Pixies. Word has it he’s been wearing those scabby feathered robes ever since he turned up here thirty years ago, and he hasn’t washed them once. Try to avoid standing downwind. Queen Mab herself kicked him out of the Fae Court, for using glamour spells to lie with human women. He always killed them after he’d had his way with them, but Mab didn’t care about that. Sex outside their race is one of the Fae’s greatest taboos. So here he is now, stripped of his glamour, just another rapist and murderer with a title that means nothing at all.

“Next to him we have His Altitude Tobermoret, monarch of all he surveyed in Far Afrique. A dark and distinguished gentleman indeed, in his zebra-hide suit and his lion-claw necklace. Tobermoret used to be War Chief of an entire continent, until his people realised he was starting wars and rebellions just for the fun of it. He did so love sending young men out to die while he sat at his ease in a tent overlooking the battle-field, enjoying the show. I did hear tell his people castrated him before they shoved him through the Timeslip, which is why he’s always in such a bad temper.

“On Queen Helena’s other side is Prince Xerxes the Murder Monarch. And yes, those really are preserved human eyes and organs and other bits and pieces hanging from all those chains he’s got wrapped around him. Though given how much he’s gone to seed since he got here, one can’t help wishing he’d wear something else apart from just the chains. He practises necromancy, the magic of murder. Partly because it’s traditional where he comes from, but mostly because he gets off on it. Though he’s learned to leave the tourists alone ever since Walker had a quiet word with him.

“And finally, next to Xerxes we have King Artur, of Sinister Albion. For every glorious dream, there’s a nightmare equivalent, somewhere in the time-streams. For every helping hand, a kick in the face. In Sinister Albion, Merlin Satanspawn decided to embrace his father’s qualities instead of rejecting them, and brought up young Artur in his own awful image. Under their direction, Camelot became a place of blood and horror, where knights in terrible armour feasted on the hearts of good men, and Albion blazed from end to end with burning Wicker Men. The only reason I haven’t killed Artur on general principles, is because I’ve been too busy with other things.”

I smiled at Queen Helena. “I think that’s it. Have I missed anything important?”

“You do so love the sound of your own voice, Taylor,” said Queen Helena. “And you will address me as Your Majesty.”

“That’ll be the day,” I said cheerfully. “What do you want with me, Helena? Or are you just taking the Exiles out for a walk?”

It took her a moment to work out how to answer me. She wasn’t used to open defiance, let alone ridicule. “You were seen,” she said finally, “talking with the General Condor. You will tell me what you talked about. What you decided. What plans were made. Tell me everything, and I shall make a place for you in my army. Power and riches shall be yours. I could use a man like you, Taylor.”

“Ah, what it is to be popular and desired,” I said. “The leadership of the Nightside is up for grabs, and suddenly everyone wants me on their side. Flattering, but…a

“Why do you say these things to me?” said Queen Helena. “When you know I will kill you for it?”

I shrugged. “I think you bring out the worst in me. There’s some shit I simply will not put up with.”

Her arms came out from under her robes, bulging tech implants already thrusting up through the blue-white skin. Dull grey gun muzzles orientated on me. Zog raised a withered arm to show off a beaten-copper glove with sharpened claws, buzzing with arcane energies. Tobermoret slammed the end of his long wooden staff on the pavement, and all the runes and sigils carved deep into the wood began to glow with a disquieting light. Xerxes produced a pair of long, curved daggers with serrated edges that looked more like butcher’s tools. He gri