I was waiting for him to run out of breath, so I could slip in a few exaggerated claims of my own, when I happened to glance over his shoulder as a very pretty girl walked in. Young and fresh and bubbling over with high spirits, she marched into the bar as though at the head of her very own parade. She wore a tight T-shirt and tighter jeans, with cowboy boots and all kinds of bangles and beads. Skin so clear it almost glowed, huge dark eyes, a scarlet mouth, and close-cropped platinum blonde hair. Without even trying, she took my breath away. Now, pretty girls have always been ten a penny in the Nightside, but she ... was different.
Conversations died away on all sides as she stopped in the middle of the bar and looked around. All the young dudes perked up, ready to catch her eye, only to be utterly dismissed as her gaze settled on me. She trotted happily forward to join me, and the Beachcomber allowed himself a small, disappointed sigh. He moved away gracefully, to find someone else he could button-hole. I was clearly spoken for. The girl swayed to a halt before me, smiling brightly. Up close, I could see that her T-shirt bore the legend If You Have to Ask, You Can’t Afford It. And that she wasn’t wearing a bra under it. I smiled easily back at her, as though this sort of thing happened to me every day, and gestured for her to park her cute little bottom on the abandoned bar-stool beside me. She dropped onto it with a happy squeak and fixed me with her huge eyes.
“Don’t get comfortable here, dear; you’re not staying,” said Miss Fritton, in a cold tone I couldn’t remember her using before. “We don’t serve your kind. Oh yes, I can see right through you; don’t think I can’t.”
The girl pouted prettily and batted her heavy eye-lashes at me. “I can stay, can’t I, sweetie?”
“Of course,” I said.
Miss Fritton sniffed loudly. “None so blind,” she said. “It’ll all end in tears, but no-one ever listens to me.” She gave the girl a stern look. “No trouble on the premises, young lady, or I’ll set the dogs on you.”
She moved off to the other end of the bar. I was a little put-out. I’d never known Miss Fritton to turn anyone away while they still had some of her money in their pockets.
“Does she actually have dogs?” said the girl.
“Only metaphorically,” I said.
“Hi!” the girl said brightly to me, dismissing Miss Fritton with a careless shrug. “You’re Larry Oblivion, I’m Polly Perkins, and you’re very pleased to see me! Because I am about to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”
“Ah,” I said. “It’s a business deal, is it?”
My disappointment must have showed in my face because she giggled delightfully and squeezed my left thigh with a surprisingly powerful grip.
“Business first, pleasure later. That’s how the world works, sweetie.”
“Exactly how are you going to make me rich?” I said, trying hard to sound tough and experienced.
“You’re a treasure-hunter,” Polly said briskly. “Everyone knows that. And I know the location of a treasure so splendid that just breathing its name in your ear will bring tears of joy to your eyes and a definite bulge in the trouser department.”
“What do you think you’ve found?” I said politely. “Has someone sold you an ancient map, perhaps, or a book with a sealed section? You can’t believe everything you buy in the Nightside. Some of these cons go way back. Oh, all right, go on, astound me. What have you found, Polly?”
“Word is, you have a special interest in Arthurian artefacts,” said Polly.
I brightened up, despite myself. “What is it, the sword in the stone?”
“Even better,” she said. “The sword’s original owner. Ah, I thought that would make you sit up and take notice. I know where we can find the Lady of the Lake, frozen for centuries in a block of ice. Preserved against the ravages of Time, since the days of King Arthur. Frozen in her own lake, after Excalibur was returned to her, after the fall of Camelot. Imagine the possibilities if she could be released from her icy tomb! The things she could tell us, of the Age of Arthur. Think of our place in History!”
“Think of how much money we could make!” I said.
“That, too!”
“How did you ... ?”
“Please,” said Polly. “Allow a girl a few secrets. The point is, I don’t feel entirely ... safe, going after this on my own. I need a partner. And I chose you! Say you’re grateful.”
“I’m grateful,” I said. “Really. But why me? There are any number of other treasure-hunters, far more experienced, who’d be only too happy to help you out.”
“I want a partner, sweetie, not someone who’d cut me out first chance he got, or fob me off with a percentage,” said Polly. “Besides, I like a man with a lean and hungry look. A man who’ll go the distance in pursuit of the big prize. You provide the brawn, and I’ll provide the brains. Do we have a deal?”
“You want someone to hide behind when the bullets start flying,” I said.
“Exactly!” She clapped her little hands together and gave me a smouldering glance. “We’re going to have such fun together ... So, are you in? Or do I have to go looking for someone with bigger ... dreams?”
I wasn’t entirely stupid, or completely besotted by her charms. Like all good cons, this was just too good to be true. I knew there was a real chance she wanted someone to do all the hard work, then hang around to take all the blame while she disappeared with the prize. But she was pretty, and I was young, and I thought I could hold my own when it came to treachery and back-stabbing. Part of me ... wanted it to be true. Wanted her to be true.
And I was so very keen to make my name with a really major find.
“To get to the Lady of the Lake,” said Polly Perkins, as we left the Bar Humbug and tripped lightly through the dark and sleazy streets, “we need to open a very old, and very specialised, dimensional gate. And for that we need several specific, and very rare, items. Think of them as tumblers in a lock.”
“A dimensional gate?” I said, trying not to sound too appalled. “No wonder you didn’t want to do this alone. Make even one mistake in opening that kind of gate, and we could end up staring into other dimensions, other realities ... even Heaven or Hell. If half the old stories are true, and you’d be surprised how many are.”
“I’m not an amateur,” said Polly, a bit frostily. “I have done this kind of thing before. Present the gate with the right items, in the right order, and it’ll roll over and play nice like a dog having its tummy tickled. So, ready for a little scavenger hunt? Jolly good! First, we need a magic wand. An elven wand, to be exact.”
“Oh, this is getting better and better,” I said. “An elf weapon? You are seriously loop the loop! The elves never sell, barter, or give up any of their weapons, so they only ever turn up as lost, stolen, or strayed. They are incredibly dangerous, insanely powerful, and nearly always booby-trapped. You can usually tell when someone’s found one because bits of him are flying through the air. There are those who say the best way to rid yourself of a troublesome rival is to make him a gift of an elven weapon.”
“If you’ve quite finished hyperventilating, can I point out that you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know? You wanted into the big league, Larry, and it doesn’t get much bigger than this. You have to risk some to get some. Or is my big bold treasure-hunter afraid of a little fairy magic?”
“Too right I am! So is anyone with two working brain-cells to bang together! I do not want to end up transformed into something small and squishy with eye-balls floating in it. But I said I’m in, so I’m in. Where’s the wand?”
She grinned, and batted her eye-lashes coyly at me. “How do you feel about a little tomb robbing?”
“Just call me Indy,” I said resignedly. Some rides you have to follow all the way to the end.