No-one had followed me; no-one had found me. I was alone.
I got out my mobile phone and called Alex Morrisey at Strangefellows. While reflecting that it was a good thing I’d recently upgraded my service, to cover all the pocket dimensions and hidden worlds of the Nightside. Alex answered the phone immediately, as though he’d been waiting for my call. His voice came through clearly, and there didn’t seem to be any noise in the background. Which was odd, for Strangefellows.
“John!” said Alex. “Where are you?”
“Think I’ll keep that to myself, for the moment,” I said. “Does sound rather quiet, at your end. Would I be right in thinking my stag do is over?”
“Are you kidding?” said Alex. “Most of the people who were here are now out on the streets looking for you, and not in a good way. Turned out a lot of them were great admirers of Julien Advent, on the quiet. And the reward money the Authorities have put up for you is the biggest anyone’s ever heard of! They want your head, John, preferably in a box.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised the news is out,” I said. “Nothing travels faster in the Nightside than bad news.”
“Did you really murder the Great Victorian Adventurer?” said Alex. “Tell me you didn’t, John; tell me this is all some terrible mistake.”
“It’s all some terrible mistake,” I said. “Really. I did kill him, but . . .”
“John! How could you?”
“He asked me to do it! He was dying anyway; and it was the only way to save a whole hospital full of innocents.”
“You killed Julien Advent!”
“It wasn’t like that!”
I did my best to explain about the Sun King, and what he meant to do, and the power he put into Julien . . . but I could tell it sounded unlikely, even for the kind of cases I usually get involved in. I could tell Alex was having trouble believing it. I wanted to say You had to be there . . . “The official story is that you murdered Julien Advent in cold blood,” said Alex. “Though no-one seems too sure why. I know you were always jealous of him, John, but . . .”
“You really think I’m capable of something like that?” I said.
“You’ve done worse,” said Alex. And I had no answer to that.
“It’s like the whole Nightside wants you dead,” said Alex. “The Authorities, or what’s left of them, are really mad at you. First, you let King of Skin die, right in front of you; and now you’ve murdered Julien Advent? They think you’ve gone rogue, and possibly feral . . .”
“How big a reward have they put on my head?” I asked, honestly curious.
“Big enough to tempt anyone,” said Alex. “If I didn’t have a bar to run . . .”
“I can’t believe I chose you as my best man,” I said.
“You don’t really think you’re still getting married tomorrow, do you?” said Alex, incredulously. “The only church service you’re likely to be attending in the near future involves a big hole in the ground and a priest trying to find something positive to say about you.”
“Alex,” I said. “What am I going to do?”
“You can’t come here,” Alex said immediately. “It’s the first place they’d look. And I’ve only just got the place cleared up after the last fight you started. Maybe . . . you should leave the Nightside. Go hide out in London Proper, until things calm down a bit. You could always claim sanctuary at Castle Inconnu, with the London Knights. They owe you, after that business with Excalibur. And they’re far enough outside the Nightside they might not be tainted by the Sun King’s influence. If that really is what’s behind all this . . .”
And then his voice dropped away suddenly, as someone else snatched the phone from him. A cold ghostly voice came clearly to me, more than usually animated with furious emotions.
“Julien Advent was my friend!” said Razor Eddie. “And a better man than you or I will ever be. And you killed him. I know where you are, Taylor. I’m coming for you. And I will soak my razor in your blood.”
His voice cut off as Alex wrestled the phone away from him. I could hear them shouting at each other, then Alex’s voice returned.
“Get the hell out of my bar, Eddie, or I will have Betty and Lucy frog-march you out, then hose you down with something seriously disinfectant! God, you stink . . . You still there, John? He’s gone. Disappeared right in front of me, leaving only his stench behind. A smell so strong it feels like it wants to make friends with you and follow you home. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry before . . . It seems like a lot more people admire Julien Advent dead than were ever prepared to say so while he was still alive. John, have you talked to Suzie yet?”
“I don’t want her involved,” I said immediately. “She’d kill anyone to protect me.”
“Yeah,” said Alex. “But would she kill everyone?”
“Probably,” I said.
“Suddenly, I have cold chills all over me.”
“I have to find the Sun King,” I said. “Stop him, kill him . . . But how the hell am I supposed to do that when it seems like all my old friends and enemies are out on the streets looking to stop and kill me?”
“I suppose you could hide out here, for a while,” said Alex. “In the cellars under the bar. Given that both Merlin Satanspawn and Arthur Pendragon were both buried down there for centuries, undetected, it seems likely there’s enough power left behind to hide you . . .”
“Thanks, Alex,” I said, and I meant it. “But the way the Sun King’s got everyone stirred up, I don’t think all of Strangefellows’ protections put together could keep them out if they did track me there. The whole world could turn up at your door, baying for my blood. I wouldn’t want to bring that down on you.”
“Does this mean I’m reinvested as best man?” said Alex.
“Don’t lose the ring,” I said.
I broke the connection and sat on my tombstone for a while, hefting the phone in one hand while my mind chased in all directions at once. The phone rang. It was Suzie. Her voice sounded cool and calm as always.
“I’ve heard,” she said. “Did you really kill Julien Advent in cold blood?”
“Of course not!” I said. “How could you even think that of me?”
“It didn’t sound like you,” said Suzie.
“I killed him at his own request, to save a whole bunch of innocents from being killed.”
“That sounds like Advent,” said Suzie. “Where are you, John?”
“You’d better stay out of this, Suzie. I can handle it.”
“Of course you can. Where are you, John?”
It was the second time she’d asked, and something in her voice made all the hackles rise up on the back of my neck. “Why do you want to know, Suzie?”
“Because the Authorities have hired me to track you down,” said Shotgun Suzie. “My biggest bounty ever.”
“And you said yes?”
“It’s a really big reward,” said Suzie. “Biggest I’ve ever been offered. And it is what I do best. It’s a matter of professional pride, John. I can’t let anyone else get to you first.”
“And you never bring your bounties back alive,” I said.
I cut her off and shut down the phone, just in case. It wasn’t like I wanted to talk to anyone anyway. I simply sat there, staring at nothing, trying not to think, trying not to feel. Because it felt like someone had punched my heart out. I’d never felt so alone.
I rocked back and forth, hugging myself tightly to keep from falling apart. Tears burned my eyes, but I was damned if I’d give in to them. Instead, I clung to the rage within me, warming my heart on its heat. I had to stop the Sun King. To save the Nightside and avenge Julien Advent. I would stop him, then put him down, in the worst and messiest way I could think of. And after that, the whole damned Nightside and everyone in it could go straight to Hell, for all I cared.
I looked up sharply. There was a new presence on the air, a new power forcing its way into the cemetery dimension. Something was coming my way, cutting its way through Space and Time to get to me, and I knew who it was, who it had to be. Light burst suddenly into the cemetery gloom, bright neon glare from the Nightside, falling through a narrow gap that split the air before me from top to bottom. The gap stretched wide, forced apart by one man’s unstoppable will; and through that hole came Razor Eddie, the Punk God of the Straight Razor. His feet crunched loudly on the gravel before me, and the gap slammed shut behind him, cutting off the light. Razor Eddie, a grey presence in a filthy coat, with dark eyes and a haunted face, holding his pearl-handled straight razor out before him. The steel blade shone supernaturally bright. Eddie moved slowly towards me, cold and implacable as an avenging angel, and it seemed to me I’d never seen him look so angry, so . . . emotional, before. I never knew he had it in him.