“All of them?” said Suzie, a little ominously.
“Well, of course,” said the Steward. “You don’t take a bath with your clothes on, do you? I mean, you’re obviously barbarians, but there really are limits to the kind of behaviour we’re prepared to tolerate here. This is a civilised Club for civilised people. Clean civilised people. If you expect to meet with our most distinguished Members, we can’t allow…”
“Can’t?” said Suzie, her hand dropping to one of the grenades at her belt.
The Steward might not have known what a grenade was, but he knew a threat when he saw it. He drew himself up to his full height. “This Club is under the protection of the entire pantheon of Roman gods and goddesses. Start any trouble here, and you’ll be leaving this lobby in several buckets.”
Suzie sniffed loudly, but took her hand away from the grenade. “I don’t think he’s bluffing, Taylor. There’s no-one more strict and unyielding about its rules and traditions than a newly formed exclusive Club. And the Roman gods were famous for their hands-on approach to smiting unbelievers.”
I looked at the Steward, and he actually fell back a pace. “They couldn’t keep us out.”
“Maybe not,” said Suzie. “But if we were to force our way in, you can bet no-one would talk to us. The kind of beings who could help us are not going to be the kind we can hope to bribe or intimidate. Hell, Taylor, what’s it coming to when I’m being the voice of reason? What’s the matter, you forget to put on clean underwear?”
“You don’t have to do this, Suzie,” I said. “You can stay here, while I go in.”
“Hell with that. You need someone to watch your bare back. Especially in a place like this.”
“I’m trying to protect you, Suzie. After … what happened to you…”
“I don’t need protecting.” She looked at me levelly. “I don’t care about this, John. Really. You’re being very … sweet, but don’t worry yourself on my account.”
I glared at the Steward. “This had better be worth it. Do you have any real Powers present tonight?”
“Oh yes, sir. All sorts. We even have an actual deity in residence. Poseidonis, god of the seas, has graced us with his noble presence. Be tactful with him, he’s been drinking. He’s also the god of horses, though no-one seems to know how that came about. Don’t bring it up, you’ll only upset him, and it takes ages to get all the seaweed out of the pool afterwards. If you’ll follow me…”
He led us through the doors at the far end of the lobby and into a pleasant little changing room, with long wooden benches. Beyond the next set of doors, I could hear voices and splashing sounds. The air was perfumed and pleasantly warm. The Steward coughed meaningfully.
“If you’ll let me have your… garments, sir and lady, I’ll have them thoroughly cleaned before you leave. It won’t take a moment…”
“Watch out for the coat,” I said. “It has serious protections built in.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment, sir.”
“And don’t mess about with my weapons,” growled Suzie. “Or they’ll be scraping your people off the walls with a trowel.”
She shrugged off her shotgun in its long holster, then took off her bandoliers of bullets and her belt of grenades. The Steward accepted them, suitably gingerly. Suzie didn’t look at me as she shrugged off her leather jacket, and nothing moved in her face, nothing at all. I took off my trench coat. It felt like removing a suit of armour. Suzie took off her shirt and stepped out of her leather trousers. Underneath, she was wearing basic, functional bra and panties. It made sense. No-one else was ever expected to see them. I took off my shirt and trousers, glad I had remembered to put on a clean pair of jockeys that morning. I’ve never liked boxers. I like to be sure of where everything is. Suzie took off her underwear, and so did I. The Steward gathered everything up, going out of his way to make it clear our nakedness meant nothing to him. He sorted everything out into one manageable pile and lifted it up, almost disappearing behind it.
“Your clothes will be cleaned, and your weapons guarded, until you are ready to leave, sir and lady. Enjoy the baths, stay as long as you like, and please remember to get out of the pool to take a piss.”
He backed out, and the doors swung shut behind him, leaving Suzie and me alone together. For a long moment we stood and looked at each other. For all the things we’d done and been through together, we’d never seen each other naked before. I’d thought I’d feel awkward, but mostly I still felt protective. I kept my gaze on her face at first, trying to be polite, but Suzie didn’t bother with any of that. She looked me over with frank curiosity. So I did the same. She had so many scars, so many old hurts, tracking across her body like the map of her troubled life.
“And those are only the ones that show,” said Suzie. She smiled, as our eyes met. “Not bad, Taylor. I always wondered what you’d look like, without the trench coat.”
“You look great,” I said. “I always thought you’d have tattoos, somewhere.”
“Nah,” she said dismissively. “I could never make my mind up. I just knew I’d end up hating it in the morning.”
“Just as well,” I said. “It would have been like scribbling graffiti across a masterpiece.”
“Oh please, Taylor. I have no illusions about how I look. Even before my new face.”
“You look fine,” I said firmly. “Trust me.”
“You smooth-talking devil, Taylor.”
We couldn’t maintain the light tone any more, so we stopped talking. She had a good body, with large friendly breasts and a pleasantly padded stomach. But the scars were everywhere; knife wounds, bullet wounds, the marks of tooth and claw. You don’t get to be the best and most feared bounty hunter in the Nightside without being willing to fight up close and personal.
“You have scars, too,” Suzie said finally. “Life has left its mark on us, John.”
She reached out a hand, and slowly, cautiously, she traced some of my scars with her fingertip. Only the very tip of her forefinger, a touch gentle as a breeze, wandering across my body. I stood very still. Suzie had been sexually abused repeatedly as a child, by her own brother. She killed him for it, eventually. But ever since she’d never been able to touch or be touched, by anyone. Not even the briefest touch, the gentlest caress. Not by lovers, or friends, or even me. She stepped a little closer, and I held myself very still, not wanting to frighten her off. God alone knew how much strength it took, for her to do this small thing. I could see her breasts rising and falling as she breathed deeply. Her face was calm, thoughtful. I wanted so much to reach out to her… but in the end, her hand dropped to her side, and she turned her face away.
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t… Not even with you, John.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
“No it isn’t. It’ll never be all right.”
“You’ve come such a long way, Suzie.”
She shook her head, still not looking at me. “What’s done can’t be undone. I’ve always known that. I can’t… care for you, John. I don’t think I have it in me any more.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “Five years ago, you shot me in the back to stop me leaving, remember?”
She nodded, and looked at me again. “It was a cry for attention.”
I moved in close, trying hard to seem supportive without crowding her. “There was a time … you wouldn’t even have been able to do this much, Suzie. You’re changing. So am I. And we monsters must stick together.”
She looked at me, and though she didn’t smile, she didn’t look away. Slowly, and very cautiously, I raised my hand, and with the very tips of my fingers I touched the ridged mass of scar and burn tissue that now made up the right side of her face. The hard skin felt cold and dead. Suzie looked into my eyes, hardly blinking, but she didn’t flinch.
“You do know,” I said. “That I will never let you be hurt like this again. I will bleed and hurt and die before I let this happen again.”
But that was a
step too far. The warmth went out of her eye, and I quickly took my hand away from her face. She looked at me for a long moment, her expression calm and cold and utterly controlled.
“I can look after myself, Taylor. But thanks for the thought. Shall we go and take a look at the baths?”
“Why not?” I said. The moment of intimacy had passed, and I knew there was nothing I could do to retrieve it. “But if anyone points at me and laughs, I am going to slam his head against the wall until his eyes change colour. Even if he is a god.”
“Men,” said Suzie. She flexed her hands unhappily. “I feel naked without my shotgun.”
“You are naked.”
We pushed open the changing room doors and stepped out into a large steam-filled chamber, most of it taken up with a grandiose pool. The air was immediately hot and sweaty, the steam thick as fog. Half a dozen slaves were kept busy heaping up coals on an iron brazier and pouring large jugs of water over them. Suzie and I moved forward, and the steam thinned out some as we approached the pool. Reclining at their ease on padded couches were any number of naked men and women, and a whole bunch of other forms whose nakedness made it clear they weren’t even slightly human. The pool itself held several mermaids, all saucy smiles and bobbing breasts and long, forked fish tails. Half a dozen dolphins frisked up and down in the water, showing off their virtuosity with big toothy grins. There were undines and sirens and some more of the lizardly types; and sitting at the far end of the pool, thirty feet tall if he was an inch, the god of the sea, Poseidonis himself. His head brushed against the ceiling, and his legs took up the whole end of the pool. His huge body was thick with hair, and his bearded face was almost impossibly handsome. His dimensions were still human, apart from a really impressive set of equipment. I looked away. I couldn’t afford to feel intimidated before I even started negotiating. In and around the pool, men and women and others looked curiously at Suzie and me. I couldn’t help feeling that a lot of the people would have looked better clothed.
“Hey,” said Suzie. “Have you noticed about Poseidonis…”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Lift your eyes, Taylor. I meant, he hasn’t got a navel.”
I looked. He hadn’t. “Of course,” I said. “He was believed into being, not born.”
By this time we’d reached the edge of the pool. Conversation had stopped as we moved cautiously between the Members reclining on their couches. Apparently our reputation had proceeded us here, too. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop one poor fool from reaching out and lazily caressing Suzie’s arse. She kicked him right off his couch and into the pool. There was general laughter, and even some applause, and I relaxed a little.
“Bravely done, my dear,” said Poseidonis, his great voice rumbling through the steamy air. “Come forward, mortals, and tell me what boon you wish of me.”
We walked forward along the edge of the pool and stopped at the end, looking up at the god. Up close, his face was big and broad and smiling, and for all the god’s size and overwhelming presence, my first thought was He doesn’t look too bright. I suppose when you’re a god, with a god’s power, you don’t have to be.
“You’re not from this Time, are you?” he said easily. “You have the smell of Chronos about you.”
“Wasn’t he a Greek god?” said Suzie.
Poseidonis shrugged. “We kept a few from the old order, for completeness.”
“We’re travellers,” I said. “From the future.”
“Oh, tourists,” said Poseidonis. He sounded disappointed.
“You’ve seen other travellers, like us?” said Suzie.
“Oh, yes.” Poseidonis scratched lazily at the curly hair on his bulging stomach. “There’s always a few, passing through, always terribly keen to tell us all about the futures they’ve come from. Like I care. Futures are like arseholes; everyone’s got one. After all, no matter what societies men come up with, they’ll always need their gods. Nothing like being immortal and powerful beyond reason, to give you job security.” He frowned suddenly. “And far too many of them will insist on talking about this new god, the Christ. Can’t say I know the chap. Is he popular, in your time? Has he joined our pantheon?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “Where we come from, no-one believes in your pantheon any more.”
His face clouded, then darkened dangerously. I knew the words were a mistake, even as I heard them coming out of my mouth, but there’s something about being naked in front of a naked man five times your size that keeps you from concentrating. Poseidonis stood up abruptly and banged his head on the ceiling. Tiles cracked and shattered, broken pieces falling into the pool, while Poseidonis clutched at his head and bellowed with pain. No-one laughed, and most of the creatures in the pool retreated to the far end. The god glared around him, then he lifted his hands and lightning cracked down out of nowhere. Vivid bolts stabbed down all through the bath house, and the various Members jumped up off their couches and ran for their lives. I got the sense they’d had to do this before. The creatures in the pool vanished, disappearing back to wherever they’d come from. I grabbed a couch and overturned it, and Suzie and I hid behind it as the lightning storm continued.
“Nice one, Taylor,” said Suzie.
“For a god powerful beyond all reason, he has really lousy aim,” I said.
The lightning broke off abruptly and the couch was plucked away from us. Poseidonis threw it the length of the pool, and then leaned over to glare at Suzie and me. His face was bright red with rage, and very ugly. Suzie and I scrabbled backwards, then ran like hell to the other end of the bath house as his long arras stretched after us. Poseidonis was standing bent over in the pool, his hunched back pressed against the ceiling. He was growing bigger by the minute, actually filling his end of the bath house. He roared like a maddened bull, and the sound was deafening as it echoed back from the tiled walls.
“So,” said Suzie, a little breathlessly. “We’re naked and unarmed, facing a really pissed off god. What’s your next bright idea?”
“I’m thinking!”
“Well, think faster!”
Poseidonis was still growing, the bath’s ceiling cracking apart as his back and shoulders heaved up against it. He reached for Suzie and me with his huge hands, and we scattered in different directions. The god paused for a moment, torn between two conflicting decisions, and while he wrestled with the problem, I happened to notice that the great pool was almost completely drained of water. Poseidonis was the god of the sea, and he’d sucked all the water out of the pool to make up his new bulk. But this was also a steam bath … I grabbed one of the couches, used it as a lever, and overturned the iron brazier full of coals right into the pool. There was a great rushing up of steam, as the coals hit what was left of the water, and in a moment everything disappeared behind a thick fog. Poseidonis cried out angrily, but his voice didn’t sound nearly as loud.
The steam slowly thinned away, to reveal an almost human-sized god, standing confusedly by the side of the pool. The extreme heat had boiled the excess water right out of him. Suzie ran forward and was upon him in a moment, a length of jagged wood from a dismembered couch in her hand. She grabbed a handful of the god’s curly hair, jerked back his head, and set the sharp wooden edges at his throat.
“All right, all right!” yelled Poseidonis. “Mortal, call your woman off!”
“Maybe,” I said, strolling down the pool to join them. “Are you feeling in a more cooperative mood, now?”
“Yes, yes! You’ve got to let me get out of here, before the heat evaporates me completely! I hate it when that happens.”
“We need a favour,” I said firmly.
Poseidonis scowled petulantly. “Anything, to get rid of you.”
“My associate and I need to go further back in Time,” I said.
“Two hundred years should do it,” said Suzie.
“To the very beginnings of the Nightside,” I concluded.
“Ah,” said the god. “Now that’s a problem.
Gods! Ease off with that wood, woman! Just because my godly person can repair any damage, eventually, it doesn’t mean I’m not sensitive to pain! Look, I don’t do Time travel. That’s Chronos’s province. I’m only the god of the sea, and horses, because of a book-keeping error, and I have no power over Time. We gods are really very strict when it comes to demarcation. And no, I can’t introduce you to Chronos; no-one’s seen him in years. I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you!”
“Then who could?” said Suzie.
“I don’t know … I don’t! Honestly I don’t! Oh gods, I’m going to end up with splinters, I know it… Look; there’s this really awful bar not far from here, supposed to be the oldest bar in the Nightside. That’s the place to ask.”
Suzie glared at me. “Don’t you even think of saying I told you so, Taylor.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I assured her. I looked at Poseidonis. “What’s the bar called?”
“Dies Irae. Which only goes to show that someone there has a classical and very warped sense of humour. Would you like me to transport you right there?”
“You can do that?” I said.
“Only with your consent, in my current weakened state, or I’d have transported you both to the moon, by now … Ow! That hurt, woman!”
“Send us to the bar,” I said. “Straight there, with no detours, and with all our clothing and weapons. And don’t even think about coming after us.”
“Believe me,” said the god, “I never want to see either of you, ever again, for the whole of my immortal lifetime.”
Chapter Ten
To Die for
When Suzie Shooter and I arrived at the oldest bar in the world, we were wearing each other’s clothes. Now, whether this was one last act of spite from an extremely pissed off god, or simply another example of his not being terribly bright, the result was that Suzie and I arrived seeming both surprised and vulnerable. Which is always dangerous in the oldest bar in the world, whatever period you’re in. A great hulking figure wrapped in an entire bearskin lurched up to Suzie, grinning nastily. Suzie kicked him square in the nuts, with such force and enthusiasm that people sitting ten feet away made pained noises in sympathy, and I rabbit-punched the guy on the way down, just to make my feelings on the matter plain, too. Several of the bear man’s friends decided to get involved and got to their feet, drawing various weapons and making various threatening noises. I drew Suzie’s shotgun from the holster hanging down my back and tossed it to her, and shortly there were blood and brains all over the nearest bare stone wall. And after that, everyone left us strictly alone.