The Spy Who Haunted Me

  “Anything for the family,” I said. “Anything for England. For humanity. But for us? What about us, Walker?”

  “Duty and responsibility are their own rewards,” said Walker. “Old-fashioned, I know, but some things don’t change. The things that matter. We do it because it has to be done. We do it because if we don’t, who will? Who else could we trust to do it right?”

  “She shouldn’t have died here,” I said. “Not like this.”

  “It’s always somewhere like this,” said Walker. “That’s the job. Did you . . . love her, Eddie?”

  “No,” I said. “But she was . . . special. If things had been different . . .”

  “If,” said Walker. “Always the harshest word.”

  “Why did you become an agent, Walker? I had no choice; I was born into the family business. So was Honey, I suppose. But why you?”

  “For the sheer damned glamour of it all,” said Walker.

  I couldn’t manage a smile for him just yet, but I nodded to show I appreciated the effort. I turned my back on Honey and walked away. Walker strode calmly along beside me, flourishing his furled umbrella like an officer’s stick. Say what you like about Walker, and many people have; the man has style. We left the back lot and the empty street behind us and went back into the town of Roswell to walk among sane things again.

  “We can’t let Peter take the prize,” I said. “Not after everything we’ve been through. Not after what he did. He’s not worthy.”

  “I’ll see him damned to Hell first,” Walker agreed cheerfully. “And his bloody grandfather too. Peter must have been the one following us earlier. I said it had to be a professional . . . He probably changed the settings on his teleport bracelet while he was still in the Sundered Lands, leaving ahead of us so he could arrive here separately.” Walker frowned. “Surely he couldn’t have known about the alien threat in advance . . . No . . . No; must have come as a very nasty surprise to find he was trapped here with the rest of us. That’s why he stayed well back until it was all over, before making his move.”

  I nodded. I didn’t really care. It was just details.

  Walker found a public phone and told the CIA about Honey. I contacted my family through my torc. That wouldn’t have been possible with the old torc, supplied by the corrupt Heart, but Ethel’s upgrade to strange matter had gifted us with many new options, some of which we were still getting used to. The Drood communications officer was all over me the moment he recognised my voice.

  “Where the hell have you been, Edwin? We haven’t been able to reach you for days! You know you’re supposed to report in regularly.”

  “I’ve been busy,” I said.

  “But where have you been? It was like you’d dropped off the whole planet! We’ve had the whole family searching for some sign of you. Even Ethel couldn’t locate you, and she sees in five dimensions!”

  “Good for her,” I said. “Now shut the hell up and patch me through to the War Room. I want to speak to the Matriarch. The whole game’s gone to hell, and the Independent Agent has screwed us all.”

  “I’m here, Edwin.” The Matriarch’s cool and utterly professional voice sounded as though she was standing right next to me. “Where are you? What’s been happening?”

  “The game was fixed from the start,” I said, doing my best to sound equally calm and collected. Even after everything that had passed between us, I still didn’t want to let myself down in front of her. “Alexander King never intended to let any of us get our grubby little hands on his treasure trove of secrets. So I’m going to be a very bad loser and take them anyway. I need to know where his secret lair really is, Grandmother. Tell me.”

  “If anyone in this family had even a strong suspicion where to get our hands on the Independent Agent, we’d have kicked in his door and shut him down long ago,” the Matriarch said calmly. “We don’t like competition, we don’t like people who change sides according to which way the wind is blowing, and we’ve never approved of his methods. We would also very much like to get back all the records, trophies, and forbidden weapons he’s stolen and cheated us out of down the years. Alexander King is no friend of this family and never has been. I’m sorry, Edwin. His present location is a complete mystery to us. The space-time coordinates he provided for your transport to Place Gloria were a strictly one-time-only thing. I did send three field agents after you, just on the off chance, but they ended up materialising halfway up an Alp with not even a climber’s hut anywhere in sight. Callan in particular was very upset about that.”

  “You know Alexander,” I said. “You were close to him once.”

  “I was younger then, and much more impressionable.” The Matriarch’s voice didn’t change a bit. “And even back then, I would never have let my feelings get in the way of a mission. The family comes first, Edwin. You know that.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know that.”

  “Are you all right, Edwin?” said the Matriarch. “You sound . . . tired. Do you require assistance?”

  “No,” I said. “I need to do this myself.”

  I shut down the contact before she could start asking me questions I had no intention of answering. I looked at Walker, who’d finished his phone call and was looking at me patiently.

  “My family can’t help,” I said.

  “I can,” said Walker.

  “You know how to find the Independent Agent?” I said just a bit suspiciously.

  “Not as such,” said Walker. “But I can get us there. It’s always been part of my job, to be able to go where I’m needed. Of course, this will mean travelling via the Nightside. And, Eddie, if I’m going to take you there, you’re going to have to promise me that you’ll behave. Droods are forbidden access to the Nightside for good reason. Do you give me your word you won’t start anything?”

  “I’ll be good,” I said. “No matter what the provocation. I can do that, to get to Alexander and Peter. But how do we get to the Nightside from here?”

  “I am about to reveal one of the great secrets of the Nightside,” said Walker. “And to a Drood, of all people. What is the world coming to? . . . Anyway, here it is. Timeslips don’t just happen. Well, actually, they do. Suddenly and violently and all over the place. Bloody things are always opening up, forming temporary gateways to the past, the future, and any number of alternate Earths. Apparently it’s the result of a major design flaw in the original creation of the Nightside . . . But you don’t really think the powers that be in the Nightside—the poor bastards who think they actually run the place—would let such a thing happen without trying to take advantage of the situation? No; they found a way to tap into the basic energies involved and made the energies work for them. The Authorities didn’t just gift me with my Voice, you know; they also gave me my very own Portable Timeslip so I could come and go as I please and be wherever I need to be, whenever I need to be there. And sometimes just a little before.”

  He produced a large gold pocket watch on a reinforced gold chain from his waistcoat pocket. He hefted the watch thoughtfully, and then held it out for me to see. The watch cover had an engraving of the snake Oroborus, with its tail in its mouth, surrounding an hourglass. Walker flipped open the cover, and inside there was nothing but darkness. Like a bottomless hole, falling away forever. I pulled my head back with a snap to keep from being sucked in. Walker smiled faintly.

  “If you look into the abyss long enough, the abyss looks back into you. And sometimes it knows your name. I’ve been told there is someone or something trapped at the bottom of the watch, powering the Portable Timeslip. I’ve never felt inclined to pursue the matter.”

  “My family has something similar,” I said, for pride’s sake. “A portable door. We’ve been using them for years.”

  “Makes you wonder who had the idea first, doesn’t it?” said Walker. “And who sold what to whom? Droods may be banned from the Nightside by long tradition, but the intelligence community has always had its connections on many unofficial levels. Your portable do
ors operate in space and local time; my Portable Timeslip is more ambitious. The Authorities, in their various incarnations, have spent centuries studying Timeslips and slowly learning how to influence and manipulate them. Not the Authorities personally, of course; they have people to do that kind of thing for them. But this little watch can take me anywhere I need to be, and once it’s been there it never forgets. Which means the exact coordinates of Alexander King’s lair are safely tucked away in the watch’s memory core.

  “Unfortunately, it’s running very low on power. It has just enough metatemporal juice left to transport both of us to a prearranged setting in the Nightside, where I can get it recharged.”

  “I’ve always wanted to visit the Nightside,” I said.

  “You only say that because you’ve never seen it,” said Walker.

  He turned the fob on the pocket watch back and forth like a combination lock, muttering under his breath as he did so. He made one final dramatic twist of the fob, and the darkness leapt up out of the watch to form itself into a door hanging on the air before us. A simple rectangle of impenetrable darkness, a patch of night sky with absolutely no stars that could lead anywhere. Walker gestured for me to walk through. Only a few days earlier I would have refused, knowing better than to turn my back on Walker . . . but I didn’t care anymore. I wanted justice and revenge, and if I had to make a deal with the Devil to get them, then so be it. I walked into the darkness and out the other side and found myself in the dingiest, sleaziest bar I’d ever seen. Walker appeared out of nowhere to stand beside me.

  “Welcome to the oldest bar in the world,” he said grandly. “Welcome to Strangefellows.”

  I have to say, I was not impressed. I’d heard about Strangefellows, of course; everyone in my line of work has. It’s the place to go if you want to make things happen. Dreams can come true, in the oldest bar in the world, whether you want them to or not. Miracles can happen, and deals can be made, and if you sit at a table long enough, everyone in the world who matters will pass by. And while you’re watching all this, someone will steal your wallet, your clothes, and quite possibly your soul. Strangefellows is where heroes and villains, gods and monsters, myths and legends go . . . to sulk in corners and cry into their drinks.

  I much preferred the upmarket, brightly lit, and certainly more civilised ambience of the Wulfshead Club, which might have its share of disreputable customers but always knew where to draw the line. The Wulfshead believed in security, good cheer, and basic hygiene, all of which were ostentatiously lacking here. The lighting was not so much low as suppressed, probably so you couldn’t tell what a dive the place actually was, and the air was thick with a whole bunch of different illegal forms of smoke. Just by breathing it in, my lungs were slumming. No one paid any attention to my sudden appearance; in fact I rather got the impression that the regulars were quite used to strangers dropping in unannounced. A lot of people were watching Walker carefully out of the corners of their eyes. I was about to remark on that when I spotted a number of small scuttling things in the shadows where the walls met the floor. I pointed them out to Walker, who shrugged.

  “Don’t mind them,” he said easily. “They provide character. And the occasional bar snack.”

  I tried not to shudder too openly as I followed Walker through the crowded tables towards the long wooden bar at the back of the room. I passed among vampires and ghouls, mummies wrapped in yards and yards of rotting gauze, a party of female horned daemons out on the pull, and even a few gods in reduced circumstances who leaned over their drinks and muttered how they used to be a contender. They all ignored me with a thoroughness I could only admire. They didn’t know Shaman Bond, and with my shirt collar pulled as far up as it would go, they couldn’t see my torc and mark me for a Drood.

  None of them looked like people I’d talk to by choice, unless I was pursuing a case. I do have my standards. I’ve known my share of dubious dives in London: sleazy back-alley establishments where you have to mug the doorman to get in—or out. I’ve strolled through my share of members-only clubs where the air of decadence and debauchery is so thick you can carve your initials on it. I’ve moved among spies and traitors, rogues and villains, friends and fiends and felons . . . and none of them had ever made my hackles stand up on end the way this place did.

  Strangefellows is where you go when the rest of the world has thrown you out.

  A larger-than-life male personage was standing on a small stage beneath a single spotlight, providing the live entertainment. He wore battered black leathers left hanging open to show off the many scars covering his unnaturally pale torso. One of the Baron Frankenstein’s creatures. He held on to the old-fashioned mike like he thought it might escape while murdering an old Janis Joplin standard, “Take Another Piece of My Heart.”

  “He’s often here,” said Walker, though I hadn’t asked. “Appears on as many open-mike talent shows as will have him, and let’s face it, most of them have more sense than to say no. Seems he’s not entirely satisfied with the baron’s work. He’s saving up his pennies for a sex-change operation.”

  I never know what to say when people tell me things like that. So I just smiled and nodded vaguely and fixed my gaze on the bar ahead.

  “I need a drink,” I said firmly. “In fact, I need several large drinks, preferably mixed together in a tall glass, but quite definitely not including a miniature umbrella or ragged slices of dodgy fruit I don’t even recognise. Any suggestions?”

  “Yes,” said Walker. “Whatever you do, don’t let yourself be persuaded into trying the Merovingian cherry brandy. That’s not booze; that’s sudden death in a bottle. And don’t try the Angel’s Urine either. It’s not a trade name. They have to bury the bottles in desanctified ground. I’d stick to Perrier, if I were you. And insist on opening the bottle yourself.”

  “You take me to the nicest places, Walker.”

  People made space for us at the bar without actually seeming to or looking in our direction. Walker smiled charmingly at the blond barmaid.

  “Hello, Cathy. I need a favour. And you’re not going to say no, or I’ll send in a team of health inspectors with armed backup.”

  She scowled at him with real menace. “What do you want, Walker?”

  “I need you to recharge my watch while I wait.”

  “What, again? I swear you only do it here so you can fiddle your expenses . . . All right, hand it over. But if it blows the fuses again, you’re paying.”

  Walker and I stood with our backs to the bar, staring out at the crowds, drinking our Perrier straight from the bottle. Walker drank with his little finger extended, of course. The roar of conversation in the bar rose and fell, interrupted now and again by moments of music and mayhem. The place might be a dump, but it was a lively dump.

  “What do you intend to do when we finally catch up to Alexander and Peter?” said Walker. He didn’t look at me.

  “Kill them,” I said. “No excuses, no plea bargaining. I’m going to kill them both.”

  “For Honey?”

  “For Honey and Blue and Katt and all the other people the Independent Agent has screwed over down the years. Alexander King made himself a legend in our field by trampling over everyone who got in his way. He did good things, important things; there’s no denying it. But only to build his reputation, so he could charge more. That’s not what being an agent is about. The world’s become too precarious to allow rogue operatives like him to run around loose . . .”

  “You went to great lengths,” murmured Walker, “to establish yourself as an independent field agent for the Droods.”

  “I still am,” I said. “It’s not what you do; it’s why you do it. I maintain a healthy distance from my family so I can see them clearly for what they are and operate as their conscience when necessary . . . I’m an agent, not an assassin. But I will kill Alexander and Peter King for all the things they’ve done. Not just because of Honey. And Blue and Katt. Am I going to have problems with you over this, Walker?”
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  “Not in the least. But, Eddie, understand this. If it comes to the point, and you find you can’t do it . . . you can’t kill them . . . I will. And you had better not get in my way. I was never an agent, Eddie. I was a soldier.”

  “For Honey?” I said.

  “No; I never cared much for her. Typical arrogant CIA spook. No, some people just need killing.”

  At which point a large, heavily muscled, and more than fashionably dressed young man emerged suddenly from the crowds to loom over us. He planted himself right in front of Walker and smiled nastily at him. He was handsome enough, in a blond Aryan steroid freak sort of way, and up close he smelled of sweat and testosterone.

  “Hello, Georgie,” said Walker. “You’re looking very yourself today. How are the bowel movements?”

  “Screw you, Walker,” said Georgie. “I don’t have to take any shit from you anymore. Not so high and mighty now, are you, without your Voice? Not so powerful, since you lost your precious Voice in the Lilith War! All these years you’ve interfered in my business deals, humiliated me in front of my people, just because you could . . . Well, you can’t talk to me like that anymore! It’s my time now. And your time to get what’s coming to you!”

  “Friend of yours?” I said to Walker.

  “Not even remotely.” Walker gazed calmly back into Georgie’s fierce gaze, and if he was at all concerned, he hid it really well. “This appalling and slightly hysterical person is Good Time Georgie. Your special go-to man in the Nightside for everything that’s bad for you, when you’re working on a low budget. Whether it’s drugs, debauchery, or demonic possession, Georgie can get it for you at a lower price than anyone else. Of course, at such prices you can’t expect guaranteed quality or customer service. Never any refunds or apologies from Good Time Georgie. Buyer beware, and there’s one born every minute.”

  “That’s all you’ve got now,” said Georgie. “Words. No Voice to back them up. I’m going to break your bones, Walker, and stamp you into the floor. No one here will help you. You’ve got no friends here.” He glanced at me. “You keep out of this. It’s none of your business.”