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"Big woman, Augusta," I said. "Very… hearty."
"She fancies you," said Alex.
"I'd rather stab myself in the eyes with forks."
I retired to a private booth at the back of the bar, with the bottle of Valhalla Venom and a glass, so I could drink and brood in peace. Never get involved in domestic disputes. Whatever you say, you're going to be wrong. One of the many reasons why I don't do divorce work. I could still remember Alex and Agatha when they first got together. We were all a lot younger then. They were so happy, so full of life, so sure of all the great things they were going to do. Their love burned in them like a fire, and I was so jealous, so sure I'd never know anything like it. Agatha and I never really got on, but we pretended for Alex's sake.
When the end came it came quickly, and apparently out of nowhere. Agatha walked out on Alex because he wouldn't, couldn't, leave the bar; and she was determined to get on in the world and make something of herself. She'd never hidden her streak of naked ambition, but it was still a shock when she just disappeared one evening, in pursuit of her dreams. She never looked back. Never contacted any of her old friends. She was going places, and we weren't. I didn't know about the Merlin business; I don't think anyone did. But it wouldn't surprise me if she engineered the whole thing, just to make sure Alex wouldn't try to stop her leaving. Agatha always was the practical one in their relationship.
I really hoped the thing with Alex and Cathy would work out. Even in the Nightside, miracles can happen. Look at me and Suzie Shooter. I sure as hell didn't see that one coming. We were closer than ever now. It still surprised me, sometimes, to wake up and turn over in bed and see Suzie lying there beside me, sleeping happily. I took a long drink of the Valhalla Venom and wondered if that was why I'd been feeling so unsettled. Was I feeling the need to have a proper grown-up life, to go along with my grown-up relationship? Agatha might be right about one thing. Maybe it was time to stop playing at being a private eye and do something that mattered with my life.
Or, it might be time to have another drink and stop thinking so much. Yes; that felt right. I filled my glass to the rim. Larry Oblivion appeared out of nowhere and sat down opposite me without even waiting to be asked. I glared at him, and he stared calmly, coldly, back. You'd think, after all my time in the Nightside, that I'd be used to seeing dead people; but sitting and talking with the risen dead is never easy. Doesn't matter whether it's an old friend like Dead Boy, or a business rival like Larry Oblivion… There's just something about a walking, talking corpse that puts my spiritual teeth on edge.
Larry Oblivion, an average-looking man in an expensive suit, with a pale, washed-out face under flat straw blond hair. He was dead and didn't care who knew it, so he didn't bother to disguise some of the more distressing aspects, like not blinking often enough and breathing only when he needed to talk. He'd been murdered by his own partner and brought back as some kind of zombie; and he was still bitter about it. Larry was probably the best-known private eye in the Nightside, next to me. The Dead Detective. The Post-Mortem Private Eye. He ran his own Investigations Bureau, did a lot of corporate work, and advertised in all the right places. It must kill him that I made more money than he did. I smiled, politely, and offered him my glass of Valhalla Venom. He shook his head curtly.
"I don't drink. I'm dead."
"No need to be obsessive about it," I said. "Dead Boy eats and drinks and…"
"I know what that degenerate does!" said Larry. "Some of us have more dignity."
"Some of us have more fun," I said. "What do you want, Larry? I have important drinking and brooding against the injustices of the universe to be getting on with."
"I want you to find my missing brother, Tommy. You do remember Tommy, don't you, Taylor? Went missing during the Lilith War, when he was supposed to be under your protection? Still missing after all this time, presumed dead. I don't believe that. I won't believe it. I'd know if he was dead. He's still out there, somewhere, maybe lost, maybe hurt… and you're going to find him for me, with your amazing gift."
"I did what I could to protect him," I said. "There was a lot going on, and in any war… bad things are going to happen. There were crowds; there was fighting. A wall collapsed over Tommy; then… the press of fighting moved us all away." I didn't tell Larry about the half-mad mob that fell on Tommy's half-buried body. I didn't tell him about the screaming. "I went back later, when it was all over, but there was no trace of him anywhere. Why come to me now, Larry, after all this time?"
"Because Hadleigh has decided to get involved."
The name seemed to drop into a sudden silence, and heads rose sharply all around us. Some people got up and left; others just disappeared into thin air. And all through the bar, there was a general feeling of Oh shit…
Everyone in the Nightside knows the history of the three Oblivion brothers. If only because knowledge is so often self-defence. Their father was Dash Oblivion, the famed Confidential Op, private investigator back in the thirties. Their mother was one Shirley den Adel, the Lady Phantasm, a costumed adventurer from the same period. They had their first son, Hadleigh, soon after they were married. Then they went time-travelling in 1946 in pursuit of an escaped war criminal, the Demon Claw. They followed him into a Timeslip, and when they came out again, it was 1973.
They had two more boys, Larry and Tommy. During their long absence, Hadleigh had gone his own way and made a name for himself, outdoing even his parents' reputation. He represented the Authorities in the Nightside, much like Walker, all through the sixties and into the seventies. Hadleigh… was the Man. Taught Walker everything he knew. But then… something happened. No-one knows what, or if they do, they're not talking, which is almost unheard of in the Nightside. Hadleigh was never the same afterwards. He went a bit strange… and left the Authorities to walk forbidden paths.
There are forbidden paths, even in a place like the Nightside. Certain doors and ways that are sealed off, locked, and guarded-closed to all but the most powerful and the most stubborn. Not because they're so dangerous or because so many who go in don't go back… The Nightside has always believed that everyone has a right to go to hell in their own way. The problem is that some of those who come back return strangely changed and horribly altered.
People talk in whispers of the House of Blue Lights, where many are tempted in but only a few come out; and when they do, they aren't even remotely human any more. They're Blue Boys. People who've been hollowed out to make room for something else. They study our world through human eyes, and they play with us as though we're just toys. They have appetites, too… Nasty appetites. Walker has them killed the moment they're identified, but the bodies take a lot of killing, and they're always empty. When things get really bad, and Walker decides there are too many Blue Boys loose in the Nightside, he orders a cull. He bangs the drum and waves handfuls of money around, and we all come ru
Suzie looks forward to the culls. I think they're her idea of an all-you-can-kill buffet.
Blue Boys. Dr. Fell. And now, the Collector. All of them looking out at the world through someone else's eyes. It's moments like this I wonder if Someone is trying to tell me something…