I walked right up to him and planted myself in front of him, so he couldn’t ignore me. “Hello!” I said cheerfully. “Isn’t the ambience awful? You probably know who I am; but who are you?”
He looked me straight in the eye, and like that he didn’t look like a teenager any more. His eyes were old, very old, and his slow smile had generations of experience behind it.
“Call me Rogue,” he said, and his voice was rich with contempt and soaked in pride. “I’m one of the few real immortals here, from the Family of Immortals.”
Everyone around us stopped talking, to stare at Rogue. We’d all heard of the Family of Immortals; the half-legendary, very long-lived family supposed to run the world from behind the scenes, for a thousand years and more . . . but no-one had ever met one, before now. Everyone at the Ball was an immortal of one kind or another, but none of them had families. They were all unique, unable to pass on what made them immortal. But the Family of Immortals had bred slow, but true, for hundreds of years.
Everyone here had heard the story, that the Family of Immortals had very recently been wiped out, slaughtered, by the equally as legendary Drood family, those very secret agents for the Good. I wasn’t the only one startled to discover that one of the few survivors of that massacre was this sulky-looking teenager.
“I did hear that the Family of Immortals is no more,” I said carefully. “The Droods are, after all, usually very thorough when it comes to wiping out threats to Humanity.”
“Some of us got away,” said Rogue. “Even Droods can’t be everywhere at once. A few of us grabbed some useful items from the Family Vaults, then escaped through the emergency teleport gates. Now those of us left are spread across the world, hiding behind new identities and keeping our heads down. And I came here because the Nightside is one of the few places in the world where Droods are forbidden to set foot, by ancient compact. One of the few places in this world or off it where I thought I could be safe.
“Of course, I hadn’t been here long before I heard that the Drood family had also been destroyed, repaid in their turn. The universe has a warped sense of humour.”
“Are you sure about this?” I said, hearing a new buzz of conversation start up behind me. “I’d heard stories, but no details . . .”
“Oh yes, I’m sure,” said Rogue, and again there was a very old, very adult unpleasantness in his voice. “I took a quick look, through a scrying glass. Drood Hall has been destroyed, blown up and burned down. They’re all dead. Such a marvellous sight: half-melted golden figures strewn across the rubble, like broken dolls. I wish I could have seen it happen . . . but you can’t have everything.”
“They’re all dead?” I said. “Every single Drood?”
“One got away,” said Rogue. “Because he wasn’t there when it happened. Only one left, out of all those self-righteous, murdering bullies. Eddie, the last Drood. I really must get around to killing him when I have a moment. There’d be no fun in doing it now, you understand, while he’s still grieving. Better to wait till he’s recovered and started rebuilding his life . . . and then there I’ll be, to put an end to the last Drood.”
“Who the hell could be powerful enough to wipe out the entire Drood family?” I said, because I felt someone should say it.
Rogue smiled and shrugged easily. “Haven’t a clue. Don’t know anyone who does. But I will find out, eventually, if only so I can shake him by the hand.”
“Okay,” I said. “So far, you’re everything your family was supposed to be. Where are the rest of you?”
“Oh, here and there,” said Rogue, deliberately vague. “All over the world, hidden in plain sight, making their plans for the return of the family.”
He grinned suddenly, the first youthful thing I’d seen him do.
“And we will be back. You can count on it. We are the real immortals, and we have ruled this world for longer than anyone in this room has been alive.” He looked disparagingly around him. “Call yourselves immortals? My family has walked this Earth for fifteen centuries!”
“So how old are you?” I said.
He scowled suddenly, sticking out his lower lip in a proper teenage pout. “I was cheated out of my inheritance by the Droods. I’ve had barely eighty years of playing with Humanity! I should have had centuries as part of the most important and powerful family there’s ever been, to walk up and down in the world and change the course of human history as the whim took me. I should have had a life of wealth and influence, dispensing Life and Death, success or failure, at my pleasure! But I’d barely got started . . . It isn’t fair!”
He broke off, startled, as I stuck my face right in close to his. I’d had enough. “That was then, Rogue, this is now. As far as I’m concerned, you’re only another refugee, on the run in the Nightside. My Nightside. So behave yourself here. You try to play with the lives of people under my protection, and I’ll drag you down to the Street of the Gods and feed you to something unknowable.”
“Of course, Walker,” said Rogue, his voice suddenly entirely reasonable. “I’m a guest in this wonderfully gaudy, tawdry city. I wouldn’t dream of making any trouble.”
“You’re overdoing it,” I said.
He smiled distantly, backed carefully away, not taking his eyes off me, and moved on. A lot of people were quite keen to talk to him, to make themselves known to a living legend.
I stood alone, thinking. I’d seen and heard a great many interesting things at the Ball of Forever, but none of it to do with what I was here for. No-one had so much as mentioned an immortality serum; either to discuss its possibilities, its price, or whether it should be destroyed. And somebody would have by now. Perhaps its owner was holding court in some hidden back room, unknown to any but the most select immortals. But I hadn’t seen anybody drifting away, or disappearing and reappearing . . . and it’s really hard to hide secret doors and rooms from me. I was beginning to wonder if the serum actually existed. A drug that could make everyone immortal would set off all kinds of alarms. The universe itself resents the existence of immortals, which is why there are so few of them. They mess things up, disrupt the natural order . . . and the universe has been known to react when it feels there are too many, in quite brutal and efficient ways. Trust me; you don’t want to know how.
I was still considering the implications of that when a great cry went up, followed by a number of screams. People were shouting, backing away, and pressing forward. I pushed my way through the crowd, following the screams, and there on the floor by the buffet, very quiet and very still and quite definitely dead, was King of Skin.
THREE
Time, See What’s Become of Me
I moved in quickly to kneel down beside the motionless body, to check for signs of life; but there was no pulse at wrist or neck. The skin under my fingertips felt cold and clammy, and strangely slack . . . It moved too easily and too freely under my touch, as though it wasn’t properly attached. I checked that King of Skin wasn’t breathing, then stood up and looked coldly around me. The immortals stood huddled together in little groups, for comfort and support, staring at me silently with wide, fascinated eyes, like traumatised children. None of them were strangers to death, even sudden and violent death; but a murder, of one of their own kind, in a place where they should have been safe . . . that was something else. No personal weapons were allowed for anyone at the Ball of Forever, supposedly to prevent things like this.
I caught Hadleigh Oblivion’s eye and beckoned him forward. He slipped easily through the crowd and moved forward to join me. He looked at the body, then looked at me expectantly.