The centipede disappeared, replaced by a huge, muscular man I didn’t recognise. A great brute of a man, with a flat, characterless face as though all the detail of his creation had gone into his massive muscles. He lashed out at Dead Boy, and the unstoppable blow picked Dead Boy up and set him flying a dozen feet away. He crashed to the floor hard and didn’t move. He couldn’t feel pain, but he could still take damage. Razor Eddie cut at the brute again and again, moving so fast now he was only a blur; but no matter how deep his blades cut into the brute’s flesh, it healed again immediately. (That was how he could handle the mirror shard without obviously damaging his hand, I thought.) Dead Boy lurched to his feet again and charged the brute, slamming into it from behind. The brute staggered, but didn’t go down. Dead Boy hit him hard, while Razor Eddie cut at the brute’s throat again and again, trying to keep the wound open long enough to do some damage.
I stood back and watched. I can fight if I have to, but it’s never been what I do best. I wiped blood from my face with the back of my hand, and raised my gift one last time. My head was throbbing sickly now, but I have always been in control of my gift and never the other way round. I concentrated, reaching out, and found the switch inside Rogue’s head, the one he used every time he decided to make a change. And then it was the easiest thing in the world for me to push the switch all the way back. The brute disappeared, replaced by a very surprised-looking Rogue. He opened his mouth to say something, and I stepped forward and kneed him briskly in the nuts. Rogue folded over, and Dead Boy and Razor Eddie beat him to the ground with great thoroughness. Rogue raised his head and looked up at Razor Eddie with my face as though that might slow him down. Eddie kicked him in my face, and by the time Rogue crashed unconscious to the floor, he looked like himself again.
The watching immortals applauded loudly. Razor Eddie and Dead Boy checked to make sure that Rogue wasn’t faking by kicking him a few times somewhere painful, then looked at me.
“What will you do with him now?” said Dead Boy.
“He goes to Shadow Deep,” I said. “Deep down under the Nightside, in the endless dark, nailed into his cell until he dies there. He can change shape all he wants in his cell; it’ll be company for him.” I looked at Eddie. “At the end there, when he looked like me, do you suppose that’s the fight between us that your friend saw?”
“Oh no,” said Eddie. “That’s still to come.”
“You can’t send him to Shadow Deep,” said Hadleigh Oblivion.
We all looked round sharply. None of us had heard him arrive, but then no-one ever does.
“Why not?” I said politely.
“Because he’s a flesh-dancer,” said Hadleigh. “He has control over every part of his body. He could probably ooze out of his cell through the cracks around the door. He’s far too dangerous to be allowed to run loose in the Nightside.”
He leaned over the unconscious immortal, grabbed his shirt front, and pulled Rogue’s face close to his own. Hadleigh inhaled deeply, and all the colour went out of Rogue’s face. Hadleigh continued to inhale, and the immortal’s face cracked and fell apart; and then every part of him collapsed into dust. Hadleigh straightened up, brushing dust from his hands. Several of the watching immortals were noisily sick. Dead Boy whooped loudly.
“You have got to teach me how to do that!”
Razor Eddie sighed. “Can’t take him anywhere.”
And that was my last case as a private investigator. Not a bad one to go out on. I caught the murderer, stopped a plan to take over the Nightside, and made the front pages of the Night Times and the Unnatural Inquirer. I even made the television news. There never was any immortality serum; someone had wanted me to attend the Ball of Forever. Someone . . . who’d known what was in the wind. And I had a pretty good idea who.
FOUR
One Last Night of Freedom
Under pressure, I agreed to hold my stag night at Strangefellows, on the grounds that whatever mess we made there, it wouldn’t show, and also that whenever the trouble inevitably broke out . . . no-one would notice. It’s that kind of bar and has been for centuries. The party was already well underway by the time I got there, thanks to my little visit to the Ball of Forever overrunning, and joy and merriment were already unconfined, not to mention pissed out of their skulls. The bar was packed wall to wall with disreputable customers as I clattered down the heavy metal stairway into the great stone pit that makes up the bar proper. I couldn’t believe I knew that many people. Or at least, so many people who didn’t want to kill me. There were friends, and enemies, and a great many people who’d been one or the other or both at various times in my life. That’s the Nightside for you. Everyone seemed to be getting on quite amiably together. Cheap booze and no closing time will do that for you.
People smiled and nodded and even waved as I made my way through the crowd, but no-one actually interrupted their drinking or carousing to talk to me, which was fine by me. I’ve never been the demonstrative kind, and casual acquaintances hug or air-kiss me at their peril. Besides, I was still feeling distinctly fragile, from overusing my gift. My right nostril stopped bleeding after I shoved half an ice cube up it, but my head still ached fiercely, and my bones creaked and protested with every movement. Sometimes I wonder whose side my gift is on.
I reached the long wooden bar and leaned heavily on it, and the bartender gave me a stern look. Even at my farewell party and pre-nuptial send-off, Alex Morrisey was still dressed all in black, complete with dark glasses and a stylish beret. (Pulled well forward to conceal a receding hair-line. Even though it fooled absolutely nobody.) Alex wasn’t going to let a small thing like general celebration and goodwill all round get in the way of his being a full-time gloomy bugger and first-class pain in the arse. Alex could brood for the Olympics and still take a bronze in feeling hard done by. He looked me over and sniffed loudly.
“Buddha on a bike, look at the state of you. People usually wait till the end of their stag do to look that bad. Only you could walk into your last night of freedom looking like something the cat threw up.”
“Never mind the words of welcome, Alex,” I growled. “I am much in need of an industrial-strength pick-me-up.”
“Never knew you when you weren’t.” Alex produced a dusty bottle from underneath the counter and slammed it on the bartop a few times, in a vain attempt to get the contents to settle. He then poured a couple of fingers of thick pink liquor into a glass and pushed it towards me. “Try this. I keep it handy for really apocalyptic hangovers. It’s called Angel’s Breath.”
I looked at the drink suspiciously. “Is it really . . .”
“No of course it isn’t. Truth in advertising never did catch on in the Nightside. This stuff is only called Angel’s Breath because if you knew what really went into it, you wouldn’t touch it even if someone put a gun to your head. In fact, that’s usually the best way to take it. Now hurry up and knock it back, before it starts scouring out the inside of the glass, and you can have a nice sweetie afterwards to take the taste away.”
I knocked it back in one, doing my best to sneak it past my tongue. There was a brief taste of something very like orange, followed by the most vile and awful taste I have ever encountered. And I’ve been around. My taste buds exploded with fear and loathing, the whole of my mouth shrivelled up in panic, and tears of pure affront leapt from my eye-balls before the lids squeezed shut in self-defence. I grabbed on to the bar with both hands, making loud noises of distress. When I have really bad nightmares, I can still almost remember that taste. When I was finally able to force my eyes open again, Alex was waiting politely before me with a glass of Lourdes Coke. I snatched it from him and drank it thirstily. It helped. When I finally put the glass down, I was surprised to find that I actually felt human again, with no more aches or pains. I wasn’t entirely sure that was worth what I’d just been through . . . “There,” said Alex, smugly. “Wasn’t that a fuss to make over a nasty taste?”