Nightingale's Lament

  “I notice they didn’t stop you smoking,” I said.

  She snorted loudly. “I’d like to see them try.” She stopped smiling suddenly and gave me a hard look. “Ian tells me that you’ve been out and about on my behalf, speaking to people. And that you found out something concerning my predecessor with the Cavendishes. I remember her face being on all the magazine covers, then … nothing. What did happen to her, John? What did the Cavendishes do to her?”

  I told her enough of the story to scare her, without dwelling on some of the nastier details. Dead Boy shot me the occasional glance as he realised what I was doing, but he kept his peace. He’d already drunk half his bottle of gin and had started eating his cigar. When I finally finished, Ross let out a long sigh.

  “I had no idea. The poor thing. And the Cavendishes did that to her?”

  “More likely had it done,” I said. “Have they ever offered to … do anything for you?”

  “No. Never.” Rossignol’s voice was firm and sharp. “I’d have told them where they could stick their magic. I don’t need any of that shit to be a success. I’m a singer, and all I’ve ever needed are my songs and my voice.” And then she stopped and frowned suddenly. “And yet, having said that… things have changed since I came to live in my little room over the club. My songs are always sad songs now. And there are some odd gaps in my memory. I feel cold, and tired, all of the time. And the way I act when the Cavendishes are around … doesn’t feel like me at all. Could they have worked a magic on me, without my knowing?”

  “It’s possible,” I said carefully. “They could have done something, then made you forget it. The Cavendishes don’t strike me as being particularly burdened with professional ethics.”

  The waitress arrived with the five whiskey sours on a tray. Rossignol cooed happily as they were lined up in front of her, then knocked back the first two, one after the other. She breathed heavily for a moment, then giggled happily, like a small child who’s just done something naughty and doesn’t give a damn. “Yes! Oh yes! That hit the spot!” She smiled charmingly at me, then at Dead Boy. “So, what’s it like, being dead?”

  “Don’t tell her!” I said sharply, then looked apologetically at the startled singer. “Sorry about that, but some questions are best left unanswered. Especially when it concerns him.”

  “Like why he’s eating that cigar instead of smoking it?”

  “Very probably.”

  She smiled at me again, a warm and embracing moment quite at odds with her earlier, somewhat distanced personality. “You’ve been known to avoid answering questions yourself on occasion, monsieur mystery man.” Her French accent had become slightly more pronounced after the third whiskey sour. I couldn’t get over how alive she seemed. She looked at me thoughtfully. “You don’t really think the Cavendishes would do anything to harm me, do you? I mean, they’re relying on me to make them a great deal of money.”

  “Maybe they thought they were helping Sylvia,” I said. “But there’s the suicides, Ross. The Cavendishes have to be connected to that somehow. I don’t trust them, and you shouldn’t either. You say the word, and Dead Boy and I will take you away from them right now. We’ll find you somewhere safe to lie low while we get some lawyers in to check out your contract, and maybe a few experts to make sure you haven’t been messed about with magically. You don’t have to worry. I can guarantee your safety. I know any number of people who’d be only too happy to bodyguard you. Not very nice people, perhaps, but…”

  “No,” said Rossignol, kindly but firmly. “It’s a very generous offer, John, and I do appreciate you’re only trying to help, but…”

  “But?”

  “But this is my big break. My chance to be a star. No-one has connections like the Cavendishes. They really can get me a contract with a major recording studio. I have to do this. I have to sing. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, all I’ve ever cared about. I can’t back out now. I won’t back out over what could be just a case of nerves. You don’t have any proof they’ve done anything wrong, do you?”

  “No,” I said. “But the suicides…”

  She grimaced. “Trust me, I haven’t forgotten. I’ll never forget the look on that poor man’s face as he pulled the trigger right in front of me. He looked right into my eyes, and he was smiling … I can’t let that go on. My singing was always supposed to make people feel good! I wanted to lift their hearts and comfort them, send them back out to face the world feeling renewed … If the Cavendishes really have done something to corrupt my songs, my voice…” She shook her head sharply. “Oh, I don’t know! I don’t know what to do!” She picked up the fourth whiskey sour and stared at it moodily.

  We all sat and considered the matter for a while. Up on the stage, a Whitney was singing “I Will Always Love You.” Rossignol sniffed loudly.

  “Never cared for that. Far too strident.”

  “I prefer the Dolly Parton version,” said Dead Boy, unexpectedly. “More warmth.”

  I looked at him. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea,” said Dead Boy.

  Rossignol put the fourth whiskey sour to one side as the chocolate gateau arrived. It really was very big, with scrapings of dark and white chocolate sprinkled on the top. Rossignol made ooh- and aah-ing noises, and her eyes went very wide. She grabbed the spoon and stuck it in, and soon there were chocolate smears all round her mouth. I considered her thoughtfully. An unpleasant idea had suggested itself. Perhaps the reason why this Rossignol seemed so different from the one I’d encountered at Caliban’s Cavern, was because this was an entirely different Rossignol. Another duplicate, like the tulpa who’d wrecked the Night Times’s offices. It would explain a lot, including how she’d been able to get out of the club so easily.

  “I think I need to go to the little boy’s room,” I said loudly, giving Dead Boy a meaningful look.

  “Fine,” he said. “Thanks for sharing that with us, John.”

  “This is the first time I’ve been to this club,” I said pointedly. “Why don’t you show me where the Gents is?”

  “I’ve never had to use it,” said Dead Boy. “One of the few advantages of being dead.”

  I glared at him and made furious eyebrow gestures while Rossignol was busy making ecstatic chocolate-eating noises, and he finally got the point. We got to our feet, excused ourselves, and headed for the nearby door marked Stand Up. Once inside, the shiny-tiled expanse was empty apart from a Kylie standing at the urinal with his skirt hiked up. Dead Boy and I waited until he’d finished, taking a keen interest in the vending machines, and once the Kylie was gone, Dead Boy gave me a hard look.

  “This had better be important, John. Just being in here alone with you is undoubtedly doing my reputation no good at all.”

  “Shut up and listen. The Cavendishes have already sent one duplicate Rossignol after me—a tulpa with supernatural strength and a really bad attitude. Is there any way you can tell whether that’s the real Rossignol or not? You’re always saying nothing can be hidden from the dead.”

  “Oh sure. I’ve already checked her out.”

  “And?”

  “She is the original. And she’s dead.”

  I looked at him for a long moment. “She’s what?”

  “She doesn’t have an aura. It was the first thing I noticed about her.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say anything?”

  “It’s none of my business if she’s mortally challenged. You need to be more open-minded, John.”

  “You mean, she’s dead, like you?”

  “Oh no. I’m a special case. And she’s far too bright and bubbly to be a zombie. But you can’t be alive without an aura. Everyone has one.”

  “Really?” I said, momentarily distracted. “What does mine look like?”

  “Lots of purple.”

  “How can she be dead and not know it?” I said, almost as angry as I was exasperated. “She’s out there right now giving every indication of being very m
uch alive. Dead people don’t have orgasms over chocolate gateau.”

  “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. Or perhaps it’s something to do with the Cavendishes and their hold over her. Do you want me to break the news to her?”

  “No, I think it should come from someone who’s at least heard of tact. And she did say she wanted the truth, whatever it was.” I scowled at the immaculately shining white tiles. “How do you tell someone they’re dead?”

  “With your mouth. After all, it could be worse.”

  “How?”

  Dead Boy gave me one of his looks. “Trust me, John. You really don’t want to know.”

  “Oh shut up.”

  By the time we got back to our table, Rossignol had demolished fully half of the gateau and drunk the other two whiskey sours. She waved happily at us the moment we reappeared and stopped to suck the chocolate smears off her fingers. Her face was flushed, and she kept lapsing into fits of the giggles. Dead Boy and I sat down facing her.

  “I want more drinks!” she said cheerfully. “Everybody should have lots more drinks! Do you want some cake? I can ask them for another spoon. No? You don’t know what you’re missing. Some days, chocolate is hotter than sex! Well, some sex, anyway. What are you both looking so dour for? Did you find your phone number on a wall in there?”

  I took a deep breath and told Rossignol what Dead Boy had discovered about her, and what it meant. I said it as simply and straightforwardly as I could, and then I sat there, waiting to see how she’d take it. All the bounce went out of her, but her face was set and calm. Her gaze was far away and thoughtful, as she slowly licked chocolate off the back of her spoon. She might have been considering a business proposition, or the loss of a distant relative. When she finally looked at me, her gaze was entirely steady, and when she spoke, her voice seemed more resigned than anything else.

  “It would explain a lot,” she said. “The gaps in my memory, why I’m always so cold, why I’m always so docile when the Cavendishes are around. They did this to me. The old me, the true me, would never have put up with the way they’ve been treating me. Being here, away from them, is like waking up from some dark, listless nightmare. Only I’m not going to wake up from this dream, am I? I’m dead.”

  I wanted to take her in my arms and comfort her, tell her everything was going to be all right, but I’d promised her I’d never lie to her. She worried her lower lip between her teeth for a while, then she looked from me to Dead Boy and back again.

  “Is there anything you can do to help me? Or at least find out what these cochons did to me?”

  “I can try,” said Dead Boy, surprisingly gently. “I have learned to See all kinds of things that are hidden from the living. It helps that you and I are both dead. It gives me a link I can use.” He took her hand in his and gestured for me to take his other hand. I did so, a little hesitantly. I still remembered what he’d done to Grey. Dead Boy smiled briefly. “Don’t wet yourself, John. I’m just going to look into Rossignol’s mind and call up a vision of her last moments alive. Her memory is probably blocked by the trauma of what happened. As long as both of you are linked to me, you’ll be able to see what I See. But remember, it’s just a vision of the past. We can’t interfere or intervene. The past cannot be changed, no matter how much we might wish to.”

  His grip tightened on my hand, and suddenly we were somewhere else. No incantations, no objects of power—just the will of a man who’d been dead for thirty years and still wouldn’t lie down. We were in the Cavendishes’ inner office, the place to which I had I been dragged, broken and bleeding. Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish were smiling at a preoccupied and scowling Rossignol. She was trying to tell them something, but they weren’t listening. Mrs. Cavendish poured Rossignol a glass of champagne and said something soothing. Rossignol snatched the glass out of her hand, knocked it back in one, and threw the glass aside. Then she fell heavily to the floor, as her legs betrayed her. She lay there, convulsing and frothing at the mouth, while Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish looked on, smiling. Until, finally, she lay still. Then the Cavendishes looked at someone standing in the shadows, but I couldn’t make out who the third person was.

  We were suddenly back at our table again. Dead Boy had let go of our hands. Rossignol was trembling, but her mouth was a firm, flat line. She made herself be still with an effort of will.

  “The Cavendishes poisoned me?” said Rossignol. “Why would they want to murder their meal ticket?”

  “A good question,” I said. “And one I think we should ask them, in a pointed and forcible manner.”

  “You could also ask them what they did to her afterwards,” said Dead Boy. He looked at Rossignol speculatively. “You don’t act like any kind of zombie I’m familiar with. You’re quite definitely deceased, but there are still traces of life about you.”

  “Could the Cavendishes have made a deal like yours?” I said. “Presumably on her behalf, as her management.”

  “No,” Dead Boy said firmly. “Such compacts can only be entered into willingly. That’s the point. You can’t just lose your soul—you have to sell it.”

  “Still,” I said, “any kind of magic that can raise the dead is by definition the work of a major player. There was someone else in that office, even if we couldn’t make out who it was. The only Power the Cavendishes have on their side that I know of is the Jonah. And while he may become a Power and a Domination eventually, like his father, he’s no necromancer.”

  “How does any of this tie in to the people killing themselves after they’ve heard me sing?” said Rossignol. Her face was still calm and controlled, but her voice was becoming increasingly brittle.

  “You went into the dark,” said Dead Boy. “And when you came back, you brought some of it with you. It comes out in your songs, when you sing. That’s what’s killing people.”

  “How could they?” said Rossignol. “How could the Cavendishes do something like that? My songs were always about life and being positive, even when I wrote about sad things. My voice was meant to raise people up, not destroy them! The Cavendishes have ruined the one thing that gave my life meaning!” Her voice threatened to crack then, but still she held on with iron self-control. Her hands were clenched into fists on top of the table. “I won’t let this go on. No more people dead because of me. I want my old voice back. I want my life back!” She glared at Dead Boy, then at me. “Can you help me? Either of you?”

  “I can’t even help myself,” Dead Boy said quietly.

  “Let’s not give up all hope just yet,” I said quickly. “Dead Boy, you said yourself she’s not like any other revenant you’ve ever met. Let’s find out exactly what was done to her. Some magical deaths can be reversed.”

  “You think the Cavendishes will agree to that?” said Dead Boy.

  “I don’t plan to give them any choice,” I said, and my voice was so cold that even Dead Boy had to look away.

  And that was when a wave of quiet swept across the club. The music and the singing cut off abruptly in mid number, and the chatter from the surrounding tables died swiftly away to nothing. We all looked around and found every diva in the place staring straight at us. Every trannie, every celebrity by proxy, was up on their feet and staring at us with dark, malignant eyes. Their painted faces were suddenly strange, twisted, shaped by new and deadly emotions. It was like being suddenly surrounded by a pack of wolves. Rossignol and Dead Boy and I rose slowly to our feet, and a frisson of anticipation moved through the menacing crowd. They all smiled at the same moment, a grimace that was all teeth and no humour. One of the Marilyns produced a knife from out of his puffed sleeve. As though that was a signal, dozens of other divas suddenly had weapons in their hands, everything from knives to razor blades to the occasional derringer. Several of them smashed bottles and glasses against tables to make jagged-edged weapons.

  “They’ve been possessed,” Dead Boy said quietly. “I know the signs. Their auras have changed. They were channelling the talents and even some of the personalitie
s of their heroines, but that channel has been overridden by a stronger signal, imposed from outside. There’s something new and a whole lot nastier in those bodies now.”

  “Could it be The Primal?” I said. “Back for another crack at us?”

  “No,” said Dead Boy. “The signs are still human.”

  A Dusty lurched suddenly forward to stare at Rossignol with unblinking eyes. “We are your greatest fans. We worship you. We adore you. We would die for you. You shouldn’t be here. We have come to take you back where you belong.”

  “Bloody hell,” I said. “It’s that bunch of Goths and geeks the Cavendishes let hang around their outer office. The fan club from Hell. The Cavendishes must have put them in the divas’ heads and sent them to bring Ross back.”

  “You can’t stay here,” the Dusty said to Rossignol, ignoring me. “These people are no good for you. You must come with us, back to the Cavendishes. They will make you the star you were born to be. Come with us, now.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” I said.

  Without any change of expression, the Dusty slashed at my throat with his knife. I jerked my head back, and he only just missed. The other divas surged forward, raising the weapons in their hands. All the Judys, Kylies, Marilyns, Nicos, and Blondies. Famous faces, marred and twisted by second-hand rage and envy. Someone was threatening to take their goddess away from them, and they would die or kill to prevent that. In their minds, they were rescuing their heroine. Dusty cut at me again. I caught his wrist, twisted it till the fingers reluctantly opened, dropping the knife, then I punched him out. Dead Boy was picking divas up and throwing them around like rag dolls. But there were always more, pressing remorselessly closer, some with improvised weapons like spiked stiletto heels, long hairpins, and clawed fingernails. A Kate Bush came at me shrieking, with a long dagger in his hand. I grabbed Dead Boy and pulled him between us, using his dead body as a shield. The knife slammed into his chest up to the hilt.

  “You bastard, Taylor!” said Dead Boy, and then rather spoiled the effect by giggling. I heaved his dead body this way and that, deflecting attacks. It soaked up the punishment, and Dead Boy didn’t object. I think he was getting a weird kind of kick out of it. Rossignol was beside me, fighting dirty, pulling trannies’ wigs down over their eyes and kicking them in the nuts when she could get a clear target. My back slammed up against the wall behind me, and I yelled past Dead Boy’s shoulder for Rossignol to overturn our table and make it a barricade. She broke away from shoulder-charging a Nico and pulled the table over, and soon all three of us were sheltering behind it.