“Did you feel anything then?” she said.
“No. Was I supposed to?”
Maggie shrugged briefly and put her clothes back on in a businesslike way. The shadows and the sense of being watched were gone.
“You’ve been dead for three days,” said Maggie. “Someone killed you, then held your spirit in your dead body. There’s a rider spell attached, to give you the appearance of normality, but inside you’re already rotting. Hence the maggots.”
“Can you undo the spell?” I said.
“Larry, you’re dead. The dead can be made to walk, but no one can bring them all the way back, not even in the Nightside. Whatever we decide to do, your story’s over, Larry.”
I thought about that for a while. I always thought I would have achieved more, before the end. All the things I meant to do, and kept putting off, because I was young and imagined I had all the time in the world. Larry Oblivion, who always dreamed of something better, but never had the guts to go after it. One ex-wife, one ex-lover, no kids, no legacy. No point and no purpose.
“When all else fails,” I said finally, “there’s always revenge. I need to find out who killed me and why, while I still can. While there’s still enough of me left to savor it.”
“Any ideas who it might have been?” said Maggie. “Anyone new you might have upset recently?”
I thought hard. “Prometheus Inc. weren’t at all happy over my handling of their poltergeist saboteur. Count Entropy didn’t like what I found out about his son, even though he paid me to dig it up. Big Max always said he’d put me in the ground someday . . .”
“Max,” Maggie said immediately. “Has to be Max. You’ve been rivals for years, hurt his business and made him look a fool, more than once. He must have decided to put an end to the competition.”
“Why would he want to keep me around after killing me?”
“To gloat! He hated your guts, Larry; it has to be him!”
I thought about it. I’d rubbed Max’s nose in it before, and all he ever did was talk. Maybe . . . he’d got tired of talking.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go see the big man and ask him a few pointed questions.”
“He’s got a lot of protection,” said Maggie. “Not at all an easy man to get to see.”
“Do I look like I care? Are you in or not?”
“Of course I’m in! I’m just pointing out that Big Max is known for surrounding himself with heavy-duty firepower.”
I smiled. “Baby, I’m dead. How are they going to stop me?”
• • •
We went out into the streets, and walked through the Nightside. The rain had stopped, and the air was sharp with new possibilities. Hot neon blazed on every side, advertising the kinds of love that might not have names, but certainly have prices. Heavy bass lines surged out of open club doors, reverberating in the ground and in my bones. All kinds of people swept past us, intent on their own business. Only some of them were human. Traffic roared constantly up and down the road, and everyone was careful to give it plenty of room. Not everything that looked like a car was a car, and some of them were hungry. In the Nightside, taxis can run on deconsecrated altar wine, and motorcycle messengers snort powdered virgin’s blood for that extra kick.
Max’s place wasn’t far. He holed up in an upmarket cocktail bar called the Spider’s Web. Word is he used to work there once. And that he had his old boss killed when he took it over, then had the man stuffed and mounted and put on display. Max never left the place any more, and held court there from behind more layers of protection than some presidents can boast. The big man had a lot of enemies, and he gloried in it.
Along the way I kept getting quick flashes of déjà vu. Brief glimpses of my dream of running through the rain. Except I was pretty sure by now that it wasn’t a dream but a memory. I could feel the desperation as I ran, pursued by something without a face.
The only entrance to the Spider’s Web was covered by two large gentlemen with shoulder holsters, and several layers of defensive magics. I knew about the magics because a client had once hired me to find out exactly what Max was using. Come to think of it, no-one had seen that client for some time. I murmured to Maggie to hang on to my arm, then drew my wand and activated it. It shone with a brilliant light, too bright to look at, and all around us the world seemed to slow down, and become flat and unreal. The roar of the traffic shut off, and the neon stopped flickering. Maggie and I were outside Time. We walked between the two bodyguards, and they didn’t even see us. I could feel the defensive magics straining, reaching out, unable to touch us.
We walked on through the club, threading our way through the frozen crowds. Deeper and deeper, into the lair of the beast. There were things going on that sickened even me, but I didn’t have the time to stop and do anything. I only had one shot at this. Maggie held my arm tightly. It would probably have hurt if I’d still been alive.
“Well,” she said, trying for a light tone and not even coming close. “A genuine wand of the Faerie. That explains a lot of things.”
“It always helps to have an unsuspected edge.”
“You could have told me. I am your partner.”
“You can never tell who’s listening, in the Nightside.” I probably would have told her, if she hadn’t ended our affair. “But I think I’m past the point of needing secrets any more.”
We found the big man sitting behind a desk in a surprisingly modest inner office. He was playing solitaire with tarot cards, and cheating. Thick mats of ivy crawled across the walls, and the floor was covered with cabalistic symbols. I closed the door behind us so we wouldn’t be interrupted, and shut down the wand. Max looked up sharply as we appeared suddenly in front of him. His right hand reached for something, but Maggie already had her silver magnum derringer out and covering him. Max shrugged, sat back in his chair, and studied us curiously.
Max Maxwell, so big they named him twice. A giant of a man, huge and lowering even behind his oversized mahogany desk. Eight feet tall and impressively broad across the shoulders, with a harsh and craggy face, he looked like he was carved out of stone. A gargoyle in a Savile Row suit. Max traded in secrets, and stayed in business because he knew something about everyone. Or at least, everyone who mattered. Even if he hadn’t killed me, there was a damned good chance he knew who had.
“Larry Oblivion,” he said, in a voice like grinding stone. “My dearest rival and most despised competitor. To what do I owe the displeasure of this unexpected visit?”
“Like you don’t already know,” said Maggie, her derringer aimed directly between his eyes.
Max ignored her, his gaze fixed on me. “Provide me with one good reason why I shouldn’t have both of you killed for this impertinence?”
“How about, you already killed me? Or haven’t you noticed that I only breathe when I talk?”
Max studied me thoughtfully. “Yes. You are dead. You have no aura. I wish I could claim the credit, but alas, it seems someone else has beaten me to it. And besides, if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead and gone, not hanging around to trouble me.”
“He’s right,” I said to Maggie. “Max is famous for never leaving loose ends.”
“You want me to kill him anyway?” said Maggie.
“No,” I said. “Tell me, Max. If you didn’t kill me, who did?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Max, smiling slowly, revealing grey teeth behind the grey lips. “Which means it isn’t any of your usual enemies. And if I don’t know, no-one does.”
I felt suddenly tired. Max had been my best bet, my last hope. He could have been lying, but I didn’t think so. Not when he knew the truth could hurt me more. My body was decaying, I had no more leads, and I didn’t have the time left to go anywhere else. So Maggie and I walked out the way we came in. Maggie would have killed Max, if I’d asked, but I didn’t see the point. Feuds and vendettas are for the living; when you’re dead you just can’t be bothered with the small shit.
• ??
? •
Maggie took me back to her place. I needed time out, to sit and think. I was close to despair. I didn’t have enough time left to investigate all the enemies I’d made in my personal and professional life. A disturbing and depressing thought, for someone facing eternity. So many enemies, and so few friends . . . I sat on Maggie’s couch, and looked fondly at her as she made us some coffee. We’d been so good together, for a while. Why didn’t it work out? If I knew the answer to that, we’d still be together. She came in from the kitchen, carrying two steaming mugs. I took one, and held it awkwardly. I wanted to drink the coffee to please her, but I couldn’t. She looked at me, puzzled.
“Larry? What’s the matter?”
And just like that, I knew. Because I finally recognized the voice I’d been hearing ever since I woke up dead.
I was at Maggie’s place, drinking coffee. It tasted funny. Larry? she said. Larry? What’s wrong? I felt something burning in my throat, and knew she’d poisoned me. I stopped time with my wand, and ran. It was raining. I didn’t dare go home. She’d find me. I didn’t know where to go for help, so I went to ground, in my old safe house at Blaiston Street. And I died there, still wondering why my partner and ex-lover had killed me.
“It was you,” I said, and something in my voice made her flinch. “You poisoned me. Why?”
“The how is more interesting,” Maggie said calmly. She sat down opposite me, entirely composed. “An old voodoo drug in your coffee, to kill you and set you up for the zombie spell. But of course I didn’t know about the wand. It interacted with my magic, buying you more time. The wand’s magic is probably what’s holding you together now.”
“Talk to me, Maggie. We were lovers. Friends. Partners.”
“That last one is the only one that matters.” She blew on her coffee, and sipped it cautiously. “I wanted our business. All of it. I was tired of being the junior partner, especially when I did most of the work. But you had the name, and the reputation, and the contacts. I didn’t see why I should have to go on sharing my money with you. I was the brains in our partnership, and you were only the muscle. You can always hire muscle. And . . . I was bored with you. Our affair was fun, and it got me the partnership I wanted; but, Larry darling, while you might have been adequate in bed, you were just so damned dull out of it.
“I couldn’t split up the business. I needed the cachet your name brings. And I couldn’t simply have you killed, because under the terms of your will, your ex would inherit your half of the business. And I really didn’t see why I should have to go to all the trouble and expense of buying her out.
“So I got out my old books and put together a neat little package of poisons and voodoo magics. As a zombie under my control, you would have made and signed a new will, leaving everything to me. Then I’d dispose of your body. But clearly I didn’t put enough sugar in your coffee. Or maybe you saw something in my face, at the last. Either way, that damned secret wand of yours let you escape. To a safe house I didn’t even know we had any more. You have no idea how surprised I was when you rang me three days later.
“Why didn’t you remember? The poison, the spells, the trauma? Or maybe you just didn’t want to believe your old sweetie could have a mind of her own and the guts to go after what she wanted.”
“So why point me at Max?” I said numbly.
“To use up what time you’ve got left. And there was always the chance you’d take each other out and leave the field even more open for me.”
“How could you do this? I loved you, Maggie!”
“That’s sweet, Larry. But a girl’s got to live.”
She put aside her coffee, stood up, and looked down at me. Frowning slightly, as though considering a necessary but distasteful task. “But it’s not too late to put things right. I made you what you are, and I can unmake you.” She pulled a silver dagger out of her sleeve. The leaf-shaped blade was covered with runes and sigils. “Just lie back and accept it, Larry. You don’t want to go on as you are, do you? I’ll cut the consciousness right out of you, then you won’t care any more. You’ll sign the necessary papers like a good little zombie, and I’ll put your body to rest. It’s been fun, Larry. Don’t spoil it.”
She came at me with the dagger while she was still talking, expecting to catch me off guard. I activated my wand, and time crashed to a halt. She hung over me, suspended in midair. I studied her for a moment; and then it was the easiest thing in the world to take the dagger away from her and slide it slowly into her heart. I let time start up again. She fell forward into my arms, and I held her while she died, because I had loved her once.
I didn’t want to kill her, even after everything she’d done and planned to do. But when a man’s partner kills him, he’s supposed to do something about it.
• • •
So here I am. Dead, but not departed. My body seems to have stabilized. No more maggots. Presumably the wand interacting with the voodoo magics. I never really understood that stuff. I don’t know how much longer I’ve got, but then, who does? Maybe I’ll have new business cards made up. Larry Oblivion, deceased detective. The postmortem private eye. I still have my work. And I need to do some good, to balance out all the bad I did while I was alive. The hereafter’s a lot closer than it used to be.
Even when you’re dead, there’s no rest for the wicked.
RAZOR EDDIE’S BIG NIGHT OUT
London has a secret. Deep in the heart of that ancient city, there is a place where gods and monsters walk openly, often hand in hand, and all the forbidden knowledge and unnatural pleasures of the world are up for sale if you can afford the price. Which might be your soul, or someone else’s. Far older than the city that surrounds and conceals it, and far more dangerous, the Nightside waits for all of us. Here the sun has never shone and never will, and it’s always three o’clock in the morning; the hour of the wolf, when most babies are born and most people die. The Nightside is a terrible, vicious place, but it doesn’t bother me. I come from somewhere much worse.
I walked unhurriedly through streets lit by hot neon, past the propped-open doors of clubs where the music never stops, and you can dance till your feet bleed, and the Devil’s music is always in season. Shops and establishments offered ecstasy and damnation, lost treasures and your heart’s desire, all at knock-down prices and only a little shop-soiled. In the Nightside, you can talk with spirits or lie down with demons, and no-one will give a damn as long as your credit holds out.
None of it tempted me.
Men and women, and things that were both and neither, hurried past me as I made my way through the crowded streets. They were all careful to give me plenty of room. People tend not to bother priests in the Nightside. You can never be sure what kind of backup they might have. I smiled and nodded pleasantly to everyone I passed because nothing upsets the lost souls of the Nightside more than a confident smile. And, finally, I came to Uptown, which passes for the fashionable end of the Nightside. Here the swells and celebrities and Major Players gather to enjoy the very best clubs and restaurants and meeting-places. I passed them all by. The man I was looking for wouldn’t be seen dead in such establishments. Unless he was there to kill someone. Behind the expensive and brightly lit watering holes is a darker place called Rats’ Alley. A cold and miserable square of stained stone walls and grimy cobble-stones, where the homeless and the down-and-outs gather, to beg food from the backdoors and service entrances of the Uptown restaurants. Sometimes they sleep there, in cardboard boxes or improvised lean-tos, or wrapped in whatever blankets or heavy coats they can beg, borrow, or steal. The wheel turns for everyone, and nowhere more so than in the Nightside.
Rats’ Alley was a mess, with dirt and grime and slime everywhere. Ragged forms huddled together, people who had lost everything, or at least, everything that mattered. Sister Morphine, in her ragged robes, arguing resignedly with one of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Chain-saw. Herne the Hunter, once a god in his own right and spirit of the wild woods, but now much diminish
ed, snarling miserably from under soggy cardboard. A single Grey alien, left behind by his abducting fellows, with a sign saying WILL PROBE FOR FOOD. I stopped abruptly as a hunger-thin and ghostly pale woman lurched out of the shadows to block my way, clutching her filthy rags about her.
“This is no place for tourists. Leave now, while you still can.”
“Hello, Jacqueline,” I said gently. “It’s all right. I’m not here for you. I’m looking for Eddie.”
Her bony hands clenched into fists. “You know me?”
“Yes. You’re Jacqueline Hyde.”
“Wrong! I’m Jacqueline; he’s Hyde. And we don’t like snoopers!”
She changed in a moment, her bones cracking loudly as they lengthened, her scrawny body bulking out with new muscle. The shoulders broadened, the face coarsened, and just like that, the man called Hyde was blocking my way, a great hulking brute scowling at me from under a lowering brow. His large, hairy hands twitched eagerly, ready to maim or murder. The homeless and down-and-outs only watched listlessly, from a safe distance. None of them would help.
“Leave him alone.”
It was a quiet, almost ghostly voice, but it stopped Hyde in his tracks. He glanced back over his shoulder. He knew the voice, and he was afraid. His clenched hands beat on the air in frustration, then he lurched back into the concealing shadows, his face and form already shrinking, changing back. At the back of the square, a length of plastic sheeting had been formed into a lean-to, from which Razor Eddie studied me thoughtfully with his cold, cold eyes. He emerged unhurriedly, pulling his ancient coat about him, and came forward to join me.
“A sad tale,” he said. “Jacqueline is in love with Hyde, and he with her, but they can never meet.”