“You’re trying to confuse us,” said Eamonn 50.
“No, really,” I said. “Her arrival in my client’s life is what changed everything. Changed him. So your being here is already redundant. He was never going to become either of you.”
“He will if we force him to,” said Eamonn 50. “If we remake him with our magics. Cut the woman out of his life, like a cancer.”
“You could kill him with your meddling,” I said. “You could destroy yourselves.”
“Death would be a release,” said Eamonn 60.
“Excuse me,” said Eamonn 40, from behind me. “Could someone please explain where all these others mes are coming from?”
“Alternate timetracks,” Tommy Oblivion said briskly. “Possible futures, lives that might have been, the wheels of If and Maybe. Our lives are determined by the decisions we make, or fail to make, and these … gentlemen are the men you might have become if you’d made certain specific decisions. Can’t say either of them looks particularly attractive, but that’s probably why your enemies chose to empower them. Can I ask what’s happened to my Buck’s Fizz?”
“But how did they get here?” said Eamonn 40, a little desperately.
“Someone’s been meddling,” I said. “Somebody really powerful, too, to be able to manipulate probability magics.”
“Has to be a major player,” said Tommy. He’d gone behind the bar to get his own drink, as Alex was quite sensibly keeping his head down. “Messing about with Time and timetracks is a serious business. So serious that the few who do work with probability tend to come down really heavily on anyone new trying to invade their territory. No-one wants some dilettante threatening the carefully maintained status quo.”
“But I don’t have any enemies!” said Eamonn 40. “People like me don’t have enemies! I’m no-one important!”
“You are now,” said Tommy, sipping daintily at his drink with one finger carefully extended. “Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble over you, old man.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “Could it be the Jonah, perhaps?”
“Dead,” I said.
“Count Video?”
“Missing, presumed dead,” I said. “Last seen running through the streets with his skin ripped off, during the angel war.”
Tommy shrugged. “You know the Nightside. People are always making comebacks. Just look at your good self.”
“God, you people love to talk,” said Eamonn 50. “I came here to fix this stupid, short-sighted version of myself, and nothing and no-one is going to stop me.”
“Nothing you do here will change anything that matters,” said Tommy. “Every version of you is as valid as any other. Every timetrack is just as real, and as certain. Changing or adapting this younger version won’t make your existence any more or less likely. If anyone told you otherwise, they lied.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Eamonn 60. “I can’t believe that.”
“You’d say anything, to try and stop us,” said Eamonn 50.
Both men let fly with their wands, beams of probability magic crackling as they shot through the air. I dived out of the way, dragging Eamonn 40 along with me. Tommy ducked gracefully down behind the bar, still holding on to his drink. A change beam hit the oak bar and ricocheted harmlessly away. The bar’s main furnishings and fittings were all protected by Merlin’s magic. Both the new Eamonns fired their wands furiously in all directions as I dodged back and forth across the bar, hauling Eamonn 40 along with me. A haze of change magic filled the air as the wands’ beams transmuted everything they touched in arbitrary and unpredictable ways.
The vampire who’d been feeding on his bloody Mary got hit by a beam and swelled up like a tick, engorging with more and more blood as he drained Mary dry, before exploding messily and showering everyone around him with second-hand blood. The empty husk of Mary crumpled to the floor like a paper sack. Some of the newer chairs and tables fell apart as they were brushed by probability beams, reduced in a moment to their original component parts. So was one of Baron Frankenstein’s creatures, as all his stitches came undone at once. Body parts rolled across the floor, while the head mouthed silent obscenities. Lightning bolts struck down out of nowhere, blackening bodies and starting fires all over. Bunches of hissing flowers blossomed from cracks in a stone wall. An old Victorian portrait began speaking in tongues. People collapsed from strokes and cerebral haemorrhages and epileptic fits. Some simply blinked out of existence, as the chances that created them were abruptly revoked.
A ghost girl was suddenly corporeal again, after years of haunting Strangefellows, and she sat at the bar crying tears of happy relief, touching everything within reach. Bottles stacked behind the bar changed shape and colour and contents. And a demon long kept imprisoned under the floor-boards burst free from its pentacle, as its containing wards were suddenly undone. Burning with thick blue ectoplasmic flames, it turned its horned head this way and that, cherishing centuries of hoarded frustrated rage, before lurching forward to kill everything within reach of its clawed hands. The bar’s two muscular bouncers, Betty and Lucy Coltrane, jumped the demon from behind and wrestled it to the floor; but it was clear they wouldn’t be able to hold it for long.
By then I’d dragged Eamonn 40 to safety behind the huge oak bar and was running through my options, which didn’t take me nearly as long as I’d hoped. Alex glared at me.
“Do something, dammit! If Merlin has to manifest through me to sort out this mess, I can’t speak for the safety of your client. You know Merlin’s always favoured the scorched-earth policy when it comes to dealing with problems.”
I nodded reluctantly. I know a few tricks, and more magic than I like to let on; but in the end it always comes down to my gift. I have a gift for finding things, a third eye in my mind, a private eye that can see where everything is, but I don’t like to use it unless I have to. When I raise my gift, the sheer power involved means I blaze like a beacon in the dark, and my Enemies can see where I am. And then they send terrible agents like the Harrowing, to kill me. They’ve been trying to kill me for as long as I can remember.
But needs must, when the devil drives …
Tommy leaned in beside me. “It’s a paradox,” he said urgently. “Just their being here, mutually exclusive futures in a time-line that couldn’t possibly produce them. Use that against them.”
So I reached deep inside my mind and powered up my gift, and found how unlikely it was that Eamonn 50 and Eamonn 60 should be there, in that place and in that time. And having found that tiny, precarious chance, it was the easiest thing in the world for me to blow it out like a candle. Both men vanished in a moment, because it was impossible for them to be there.
I shut down my gift, and quickly re-established all my mental defences. My Enemies were usually wary of attacking me on Merlin’s territory, but they’d been growing increasingly desperate of late. It was all very quiet in the bar. Patrons slowly emerged from their hiding places, looking around rather confusedly. Since the two older Eamonns had never been there, the attack had never happened, but all the changes enforced by the probability wands remained. Magic trumps logic every time. We all took turns kicking the crap out of the released demon, until Alex reactivated the old spell that put it back under the floor-boards again, then we set about extinguishing the various fires that were still burning. Betty and Lucy Coltrane gathered up all the scattered parts of the Frankenstein creation and stacked them behind the bar, until one of the Baron’s descendants should drop in for a drink again.
All in all, we’d got off pretty lightly. Playing around with probability magic is always dangerous. Time doesn’t like being messed around with, and it plays dirty. That’s why Time travel is so very carefully regulated.
Alex looked at what had been done to all the bottles behind his bar and tugged bitterly at tufts of his hair. “Those bastards! I’m going to have to check every bottle individually to find out what’s in them now. Could be anything from demon’s urine to designer water. And I could probab
ly sell demon’s urine … You’re a jinx, Taylor, you know that? If I had any sense, I’d have shot you on sight the moment you walked in.”
Eamonn looked at me worriedly, but I smiled at him reassuringly. “Don’t worry; that’s just Alex being Alex. He doesn’t really mean it.”
“Yes I bloody do!”
“All right, he probably does really mean it, but he’ll get over it. He’s a friend.”
“Then I’d hate to meet one of your enemies,” muttered Eamonn.
“I think some of you already have,” I said. “I think someone’s using you, in all your many versions, to get at me.”
“But why use me?” said Eamonn plaintively.
“Good question,” I said.
I led him over to a table in the furthest corner of the bar, and we sat down. Tommy Oblivion sat down with us. I gave him a thoughtful look, and he laughed a little nervously.
“We did seem to work rather well together, old man. I thought perhaps I could help you out on this case of yours. It does seem to be my sort of thing. For a reasonable percentage of the fee, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” I said. “This is business, after all. Tell you what; you can have half of what I’m getting. How’s that?”
“More than reasonable, my dear sir! Never let it be said that John Taylor is not a prince among men!”
Since I wasn’t expecting to make a penny out of this case, I was quite happy to share the penny I wasn’t getting with Tommy Oblivion. I could be existential, too, when it suited me. He smiled happily at me, and I smiled back.
“Look, is it over now?” said Eamonn. “Can I go home now? I really don’t like it here.”
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “I could escort you safely out of the Nightside, but the odds are our mutual enemy would find some way to bring you back and start this up all over again.”
“Oh God…” Eamonn sat slumped in his chair, a small ordinary man struggling to cope with problems he should never have had to face. I felt sorry for him. The Nightside is hard enough to deal with when you choose to come here.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on the case. I will find out who’s doing this to you, and I will make them stop.”
“And if Taylor says that, you can take it to the bank,” said Tommy, unexpectedly.
“Talk to me, Eamonn,” I said. “Tell me about yourself, about your life. There must be a clue in it somewhere.”
But Eamonn was already shaking his head. “I’m nobody. Or at least, nobody important. Just a minor cog in the great machinery of a big corporation. I do the necessary, everyday work that keeps the wheels turning.”
“All right,” I said. “Who do you work for?”
“The Widow’s Mite Investment Corporation. It’s a big company, with branches and offices worldwide. I’ve worked in the London branch almost twenty years now, man and boy. It’s interesting work. We’re a fund-raising company, persuading other companies to invest their money in worthy and charitable ventures. That’s organized charities, of course, along with small start-up businesses that show promise, and some lobbying groups, for recognized Good Causes. We raise a lot of money, and take a reasonable percentage for ourselves along the way. I say ourselves, but of course I don’t see any of the money. It’s just when you work for a company for twenty years … Anyway, mine may not be a particularly challenging job, not what I expected my life would be, but… that’s life. Few people ever really achieve their dreams or ambitions. We also serve, who keep the wheels of civilization turning. Because the world couldn’t get by without us. And anyway, all I’ve ever cared about is providing for my family. They are my dreams and ambitions now.”
And nothing would do but that he get his photos of the wife and children out again, to show to Tommy. He made all the correct polite noises while I frowned, thinking. I was still pretty sure Eamonn was bait in a trap for me, but I was beginning to think there was rather more to it than that.
“What made you come to John Taylor for help?” said Tommy, as Eamonn carefully put away his photos again.
“I found his business card in my hand when I arrived in the Nightside.”
“That’s how I knew someone had to be playing us,” I said. “I don’t have a business card. Never saw the need. Everyone here knows who I am.”
“I have a card,” said Tommy. “Or, at least sometimes I do. It depends.”
I knew better than to pursue that. “What matters,” I said firmly, “is that someone is interfering in Eamonn’s life, and mine. And I won’t have that. Anyone wants to come after me, they can do it to my face. I’m used to it. I won’t have them attacking me through innocents.”
“I’ve heard of the Widow’s Mite company,” said Tommy. “They have a branch here in the Nightside.”
Eamonn looked at us with something very like horror. “My company has a branch in this … hellhole?”
I shrugged. “Most big companies do. Can’t say I’ve heard anything particularly good or bad about the Widow’s Mite … What say we go and pay them a visit?”
“What if they won’t let us in?” said Eamonn.
Tommy and I shared a smile. “We’ll get in,” I said.
“They couldn’t have anything to do with … all this,” said Eamonn. “They just couldn’t. They’ve always treated me well. Offered me promotions … though of course I could never take them. It would mean leaving my family for long periods. You can’t really believe a reputable company like the Widow’s Mite is behind this!”
“Sure I can,” I said. “Big corporations aren’t always the bad guys; but it’s the sensible way to bet.”
Chapter Four
Time for Straight Talking
We left Strangefellows and went walking through the Nightside, with Eamonn in the middle. He felt safer that way. He was taking more notice of his surroundings, but it was clear he didn’t approve of anything he saw. The inhuman elements scared him, and, if anything, the temptations available scared him even more. There was nothing in the Nightside he wanted, and what might have seemed magical or fantastical to others just disturbed him. He wanted nothing to do with any of it.
“I have to get home,” he said miserably. “I’m never late getting home. Andrea and the children will be so worried. They’ll think something’s happened to me.”
“Well, something has,” I said reasonably. “Just think of the great story you’ll be able to tell them when you get back.”
“Oh no,” he said immediately. “I could never tell them anything about… this. It would only frighten them. It frightens me.”
“Will you please relax,” said Tommy, a little irritated. “You’re with me and John Taylor; the two most proficient private investigators in the Nightside. You couldn’t be safer if you were wrapped in cotton wool and body armor. We’ll sort out your little problem for you. After all, I have a marvelous deductive brain, and Taylor is the only man in the Nightside that everyone else is afraid of.”
“Somehow I don’t find that particularly reassuring,” said Eamonn, but he managed a small smile nonetheless. “I do appreciate your efforts on my behalf. It’s only that… I don’t belong here.”
I couldn’t help but agree with that. The Nightside isn’t for everyone. Dragging Eamonn into our endless night was like throwing a small child to the wolves. I was starting to feel protective about him, and increasingly angry at whoever had decided to put him through this ordeal.
“We’ll get you through this,” I said. “Once we talk to the people at the Widow’s Mite, I’m sure they’ll tell us everything we need to know.”
“Taylor is very good at getting answers out of people,” Tommy said blithely. “Even if he has to pries them out with a crow-bar.”
I gave him a hard look. “You’re really not helping, Tommy.”
“Couldn’t we hail a taxi?” Eamonn said plaintively. “I think I’d feel a lot safer off the streets.”
“Best not to,” I said. “Not everything here that looks like traffic is. There are t
axis, but most of them charge unusual and distressing payments for their services. Hell, even the ambulances run on distilled suffering, and motorbike messengers snort powdered virgin’s blood for that extra kick. All kinds of things use that road, and most of them are hungry. We’re better off walking. Besides, we’ll be harder to locate in the crowds.”
“The more you explain things, the worse I feel,” said Eamonn. “I’d hate to see your Tourist Information office.” It was a small joke, but a brave effort under the circumstances.
We made our way into the business sector, and Eamonn did seem to relax a little as more and more business suits appeared in the crowds around him. Admittedly some of the suits were worn by demons, and some weren’t being worn by anyone at all, but he was pleased to see something familiar at last. Rent-a-cops were thick on the ground, and gave me suspicious looks as we passed, but they all kept their distance. They weren’t paid enough to mess with me. In fact, I had heard a rumor that the rent-a-cops’ union was trying to get a clause inserted in their contracts that said they were all entitled to go off sick if I so much as entered their territory. It’s little things like that that make life worth living. We finally came to the Widow’s Mite building and stopped before the main entrance to look it over. For the first time, Eamonn actually looked angry rather than upset.
“This shouldn’t be here,” he said flatly. “Not here, in this place. It puts our whole moral probity at risk. I can’t believe top management knows about this. We raise money for charities. Important charities. If top management knew about this branch, the same top management that decides which charities get the money we raise…”
He broke off suddenly, as he realized where his argument was going. “Go on,” I said. “If they know about this, and approve…”
“Then their judgment in deciding where the money goes would have to be equally suspect,” Eamonn said unhappily. “And possibly I’ve spent twenty years persuading people to give money to unworthy causes. If Widow’s Mite has a branch here, I have to wonder… where all that money has been going, all these years.”