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"I'm coming straight back," said Suzie. "Don't agree to anything, and above all don't sign anything until I've looked at it first."
"I did survive for years without you, you know."
"Beats the hell out of me how. See you soon. My love."
And she was gone. Suzie never was one for small talk. I put the phone away. Like a lot of people in the Nightside, I can't help wondering where the satellites are. Or even if there are satellites. I keep hoping someone will hire me to find out.
And then the three witches appeared, advancing on my booth. Bent-over hags in shapeless shrouds, with warts and hooked noses and evil eyes. They gathered before me, cackling hideously, then bowed deeply.
"Hail!"
"Hail!"
"Hail!"
"All hail John Taylor, who shall be King hereafter!"
I glared at them. "Alex put you up to this, didn't he?"
SIX
Crime Scene Investigators I travelled to Cheyne Walk on the Underground. After all the more than usually crazy weirdness of my day so far, I felt in need of the ordinary everyday weirdness of the Tube system. From the moment I descended the crowded stairs into the packed station, everything seemed reassuringly normal. The buskers were out in force, singing for their supper with more enthusiasm than talent. A wide-eyed gentleman with multiple personality disorder was doing three-part harmonies with himselves, in a rocking rendition of "My Guy." A malfunctioning android in a monk's robe was blasting out Gregorian chants interspersed with quick bursts of hot Gospel soul. And a soft ghost sang a sad song in a language no-one recognised, from a world no-one remembered any more. I dropped a little spare change on all of them. Because you never know. All it ever takes is one really bad day, and we can all fall off the edge.
The tu
Everyone gave me plenty of room, though. I'm John Taylor.
I leaned against a platform wall and waited for my train, aimlessly studying the posters on the wall opposite. They stirred and changed in subtle ways, advertising movies that could only be seen in certain very private clubs. Weird images that came and went like scenes from disturbed dreams.
A tall diva in all-white leathers led a shaved chupacabra past me on a leash. A clone boy band with seven identical faces slouched arrogantly after her. A dead surfer with rotting jammies came to stand beside me, leaning patiently on the coffin lid he was using as a board. (Though God alone knew where he thought he was going to find a decent wave in the Nightside.) City gents in smart city suits stood close together in their proud little cliques, discussing ritual sacrifice and the Financial Times shares index. There were also plenty of the usual creatures trying to pass themselves off as human, with varying degrees of success. No-one ever says anything to them. It's the thought that counts.
A few yards away a group of mimes beat up a pickpocket with their invisible mallets.
Just another day in the Nightside.
By the time the train got me to Cheyne Walk, I was so relaxed I almost dozed off on my seat, and my head came up with a jerk as the train slammed into the station. I made my way up through the tu
Heavy-drinking bars stood alongside advanced dance salons, while brightly lit book-shops offered volumes of forgotten lore and forbidden knowledge. In paperback, and usually remaindered. There was even one of those new age soul-massage parlours, guaranteed to put your i
But still the tourists and the punters streamed this way and that, with eyes bigger than their wallets, on the prod and on the prowl, desperate to give away everything they had for everything on offer that was bad for them. The street was alive with noise and bustle and something very like glamour. Candy-coloured neon signs blazed like beacons, and everywhere you looked there was every kind of come-on. The damned leading the damned; the Nightside doing what it did best.
I stopped half-way along the street, trying to remember exactly where I saw Tommy Oblivion go down; first under a falling wall, then under the clawing hands of a maddened crowd. I always assumed he died here because I saw so many others die that day. Like Sister Morphine, the angel of the homeless. She'd died right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to help her. There was a war on. I couldn't save everyone. I could still remember the bodies, piled up like refuse, while blood ran so thickly in the gutters it overflowed the storm drains. I could still hear the screams and pleas from the wounded and the dying… still see the mobs ru
Because the Nightside doesn't look back.
I finally caught up with Larry Oblivion at the end of the street. He was standing in front of what had been one of the new business establishments, but was now just a smoking ruin, with broken, blackened walls surrounding a great pit in the earth. A sputtering neon sign had been driven half its length into the ground, like a Technicolor spike. A crowd of interested onlookers was carefully maintaining a discreet distance between them and the blast zone. Or possibly, between them and the heavily scowling Larry Oblivion. They were all cheerfully debating what had happened, how it had happened, why it had happened; and swapping theories on who might be next. Then they saw me approaching and went suddenly quiet. Not so much because they were impressed as because they didn't want to miss out on anything. Everyone knew about Larry and me. The Nightside does so love to gossip. I made a point of giving Larry my most friendly smile as I joined him, to spite everyone.
"Hadleigh's already been here," Larry said bluntly. "I've been talking to people. He scared the crap out of everybody and blew this place up just by looking at it. Typical Hadleigh. At least he only killed a bunch of bad guys this time, and no i
"Does he do that, sometimes?" I said. "Kill i
"Who knows what he does, these days."
"Why single out this place?" I said, looking interestedly around the still-smoking ruins.