I didn’t hear the car coming, but long years of experience surviving in the Nightside made me look round suddenly. And there, coming straight at me at speed, was the great shining silver bullet of Dead Boy’s futuristic car. I didn’t hear it approach because it had no wheels, floating serenely on super-scientific energy fields, and an engine that barely murmured at the best of times. I threw myself out of its way, and the car’s front bumper hit me a glancing blow as it shot past. The impact sent me sprawling, rolling over and over. I hit hard and took my time coming to a stop; afterwards I lay there, gasping for breath. My hip hurt like hell, but I didn’t think it was broken. And while I lay there, trying to get my thoughts back together again, the car swung smoothly round at the end of the street, moved unhurriedly back towards me, and stopped a respectful distance away. The driver’s door swung smoothly open, and Dead Boy lurched out, resplendent in his purple greatcoat with a black rose at the lapel. He sauntered down the street towards me, his face completely relaxed and utterly remorseless.
“My car has the best tracking systems in the world,” he said easily. “She knew where you were going to reappear before you did. I’ve been parked at the end of this street for ages, waiting for you to turn up. Killer.”
“It wasn’t like that!” I said, forcing myself up onto one knee, and checking myself over for damages.
“Oh please,” said Dead Boy. “Don’t embarrass yourself. I’ve heard the story of how Advent died too many times, from people I have every reason to trust. Julien Advent was a good man. He taught me about honour. He believed in me even though I was dead. He was always there for me . . . Even when you ran away from the Nightside and hid out in London Proper for all those years. He never abandoned me! He taught me how to live again!”
“I didn’t murder him,” I said, somehow clambering up onto my feet again. It had been a long day. I stood swaying before him, meeting his unwavering gaze with my own. “After all we’ve been through, after all the things we’ve faced together; can’t you trust me?”
“You?” said Dead Boy, and tired as I was, I had to admit he had a point.
He moved suddenly forward, crossing the intervening space between us in a moment. He took two good handfuls of my coat lapels and held me easily in the air with his unnatural strength. My feet kicked helplessly a good yard above the ground. I grabbed his wrists with my hands, but it was like gripping cold steel. I wrestled against his grip, but couldn’t break it. I let go, and punched him in the side of the head, with as much strength as the awkward angle would allow. I hurt my hand, but I didn’t hurt him.
He laughed at me. “Come on, John; you know better than that. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything unless I take my special pills. But I think I will feel something when I kill you. I will feel something when I avenge Julien Advent.”
“He never could stand you,” I said.
He threw my against the wall behind me, on the other side of the street. I hit hard; and the world went away for a while. When it came back, I was lying in the middle of the road. My face hurt like hell, and blood was dripping from my mouth and nose. Dead Boy had been busy while I was away. I looked carefully around me, without raising my head. Dead Boy was standing over me, looking down the street towards his futuristic car. I was already recovering, but he didn’t know that. He didn’t know about the werewolf blood. He couldn’t know how quickly I could put myself back together again. Dead Boy laughed softly and looked down at me.
“You can stop playing dead, John. I know you’re awake. I heard your breathing change. You always were a tough little bastard. But after the way I bounced you off that wall and slapped you around, you won’t be getting up anytime soon. So I think I’ll run you over with my car. Over and over and over again.”
He called to his marvellous futuristic car, and the engine murmured into life. The car headed straight for me, taking its time. Dead Boy stayed right where he was, so he could see it all in close-up and savour it. His smile vanished as I sat up, spat out a mouthful of blood, and grinned at him.
“Have to do better than that, you brain-dead animated corpse.”
Dead Boy leaned slowly towards me, not allowing himself to be hurried, his dead hands clenched into fists and his dark eyes fixed on me. The car was still coming, building speed, aimed right at me. I waited till Dead Boy was bending right over me, then I used my gift to find all the stitches, staples, and yards of duct tape that held his much-abused dead body together. And once I had them, it was the easiest thing in the world to find all their weak spots. The stitches broke, the duct tape ruptured, and rusting staples flew out of him like tiny shrapnel.
It was an old weakness of Dead Boy’s. I’d seen someone else do it to him before. And I never forget a weakness I might need to make use of someday.
Dead Boy cried out as he fell helplessly to his knees, clutching at his opening wounds to stop his internal organs from falling out. The car was almost on top of us, slamming on its brakes as it worked out what was happening . . . too late, too late. I rolled casually to one side, and the car ran right over Dead Boy as he lay broken and helpless on the ground. When the futuristic car finally lurched to a halt, it had run over Dead Boy, its back wheels resting right on top of him, pinning him firmly to the ground. And before it could decide whether to move on or back away, I sauntered over and placed one heavy foot on the back bumper.
“Back off now, and you’ll tear him apart,” I said to the car. I was pretty sure it could understand me. “And if you try to go forward, I’ll do something even more unpleasant to him. And you.” The car didn’t move, so I looked down at Dead Boy’s strained face, glaring up at me. “You can treat a mule with kindness,” I said. “But first you have to hit it over the head with a two-by-four, to get its attention. I am not guilty of murdering Julien Advent, you idiot. And to prove it, I’m not going to kill you.”
“You can’t kill me,” Dead Boy said craftily. “The clue’s in the name.”
“All right then, I won’t damage or destroy your body, or shove it in the furnace and dance around singing Hallelujah.”
Dead Boy considered this for a while, looking up at me thoughtfully. “You could find a way to get rid of me, couldn’t you? Typical John bloody Taylor. All right, let’s talk. If we must. I got a call to go to the Hospice. Anonymous, but you get used to those, in the Nightside. It told me Julien Advent was dead. I didn’t want to believe it, so of course I had to go. When I got there, he was lying there, stretched out on the floor. I didn’t see any blood, so for a moment I hoped, but . . . Some doctor was weeping over him. Nurses and patients, too. I knelt and looked Julien over, but he was definitely gone. The dead know death when they see it. The doctor said you’d killed him, for no reason. I always knew you’d go rogue someday.”
“I find my friends’ lack of faith in me disturbing,” I said.
“Go on! Kill me, if you can! Find a way to destroy my body! But you’d better make a really good job of it; because it’s the only way you’ll stop me from avenging Julien Advent!”
“Why is everyone so keen to avenge him?” I said. “None of you ever had much time for him when he was alive.”
“I couldn’t help him, then,” said Dead Boy. “What could someone like me do for someone like him? But I can do this!”
“I’m not going to kill, destroy, or disassemble you,” I said patiently.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re my friend.”
“All right,” said Dead Boy, slowly. “One of us has definitely mellowed; and it sure as hell isn’t me. Something is very wrong here. You never killed anyone that you weren’t prepared to boast about afterwards; and you never showed mercy to anyone who threatened your life. Are you sure you didn’t kill Julien Advent? Because . . . as much as I want to believe you, something is yelling in my head that you did it.”