"I should have killed you long ago."
"I know."
"But you were a child, and I thought you could be saved. And later, I saw you trying so hard to be a good man, and I doubted. When you left the Nightside, I thought perhaps it was a sign. I wanted to believe that. And then you came back. Why did you have to come back, John?"
"Hush, Pew."
"Always knew you'd be the death of me. I wish ... I could have brought you to see the Light. It really is so ... glorious..."
I glared at Lilith. "Do something. Save him! He's a good man, and he doesn't deserve to die like this!"
"You must learn to be strong, John," said Lilith. 'To be able to do what's necessary."
I would have shouted at her, begged and threatened and promised her anything, but Pew had stopped breathing. "You didn't have to kill him," I said. "It wasn't necessary."
"I will decide what is necessary," said Lilith. "You must forget these old restrictive ideas of Good and Evil. The only real good is what serves the Nightside, the only real evil that which opposes its best interests. Come with me, my son, and I will teach you many things."
And then Walker's people responded to some unseen signal from him, and launched their attack, focussing their destructive magics on Sinner and Pretty Poison. The combat magicians waved their hands around, shouting their Words of Power, brandishing magic amulets and wands and pointing-bones, and powerful energies crackled on the air. Tables and chairs exploded, but Sinner and Pretty Poison stood firm. Alex quickly disappeared behind the bar, head well down, dragging Madman along with him. I could hear him shouting something about Merlin's defences kicking in anytime soon, but I knew better. Walker was the Voice of the Authorities, and Merlin ... was just a dead sorcerer. While he was sleeping.
Walker and Lilith looked at each other, ignoring the chaos around them.
I laid Pew's body carefully on the floor and moved the grey cloth back to cover his empty eyes. I raised my head and yelled out to Alex.
"Any chance you could get Merlin to manifest again?"
"And make things even worse?" said Alex, without raising his head above the bar. "I think we should wait until we're really desperate."
"Personally, I think we passed desperate some time back," said Madman.
I could barely hear them above the roar of discharging magics. Sinner was standing in front of Pretty Poison, protecting her with his invulnerable body. At first the magical attacks couldn't seem to find him, exploding everywhere except where he stood, doing great damage to the bar and its furnishings, but not much else. But the sheer amount of power amassed against Sinner overwhelmed even his innate condition, and the attacks began to strike home. Bullets from specially blessed and cursed guns slammed into his chest, and though no blood flowed, the holes in his chest did not heal or close. Curses burned his flesh and cracked his bones. Elemental forces ripped and tore at him, and one eye exploded messily in his head. Sinner made no move to attack those who were trying to kill him. For all his dubious history, he'd never learned to hate anyone. I don't think he had it in him. He just stood his ground, standing firm against everything anyone could throw at him, refusing to go down, refusing to allow Pretty Poison to be hurt.
None of the magics went anywhere near Lilith.
And while I was watching all this and trying to decide what to do for the best, Bad Penny took advantage of my distraction. She used her ability to turn up unexpectedly, appeared out of nowhere behind me, and stuck a knife in my back. Some instinct warned me at the very last moment, and I twisted aside, but the long blade still sank deep into my back, jarring against my spine. I lashed out with one arm, throwing Penny backwards, and then the pain paralysed me, screaming through my lower back. I dropped to my knees, panting for breath, my head reeling. I gritted my teeth and clung grimly onto consciousness, forcing my thoughts to make sense. There didn't seem to be any blood in my mouth, so hopefully Penny had missed the lung. The pain was bad, but it was bearable. I reached slowly round with one hand, crying out at the pain, trying to get hold of the knife hilt, but it was out of reach. So, leave it where it was and worry about it later.
I forced myself up onto my feet again, sweat dripping from my face at the effort, and Penny swore and stamped her foot angrily as she saw she hadn't finished me off after all. She started forward, another knife in her hand, and then our eyes met, and we both hesitated for a moment. I didn't really know her. We'd worked a few cases together, been to bed a few times, but we'd never been close. And right then, I don't think it would have mattered even if we had been. She was ready to kill me. I could see it in her eyes and in her cold, nasty smile. And I was so angry at Pew's death and needed someone to take it out on.
She came at me with the other knife, and I reached deep inside myself, powered up my gift, opened up my third eye, and found within Bad Penny the magic that allowed her always to turn up unexpectedly. And it was the easiest thing in the world for me to shut down that magic and rip it right out of her, taking away her ability to turn up anywhere at all. She looked at me with horror as she lost her grip on the world and faded slowly and silently away, never to return.
I waved good-bye. I don't think I smiled. I don't like to think I might have smiled.
But in using my gift, I had made myself vulnerable to my enemies. They found me almost immediately, and sent their new weapon after me, punching right through the bar's defences. Bright actinic energies flared, sharp and powerful, dazzling as the sun. Everyone cried out and fell back, except for Lilith. All hostilities paused, as the terrible thing that had been haunting me so remorselessly materialised. The terrible light faded away, revealing the awful weapon my enemies had sent to kill me.
It was Shotgun Suzie.
She looked older, hard-used, and horribly disfigured. Her long straggly hair was white, streaked with grey and packed dirt. Inside her torn and battered leathers she was painfully thin, but she burned with a fierce unnatural energy. Her presence crackled on the air, dominating the scene, like Death herself come walking among mortals. Her gaze was cold and implacable. Half her face had been burned away, long ago; the skin was blackened and crisped and twisted around the seared-shut eye. One side of her mouth was twisted up into a permanent caustic smile.
But that wasn't the worst thing. Her right forearm was gone, stopped at the elbow. In its place someone had fitted the Speaking Gun. A weapon originally designed to kill angels. It had been refashioned from the last time I saw it, from a handgun to a shotgun, but it was still the ugliest, vilest weapon I had ever seen. It was made of meat, of flesh and bone, held together with dark-veined gristle and shards of cartilage, bound with long strips of pale skin. The long handle was discoloured bone, plugged clumsily into what was left of her elbow. Thick fleshy cables rose up out of the stock of the Gun and plunged into her upper arm. The red meat of the elongated barrels glistened wetly, and the strands of skin had a hot, sweaty look.
It was the Speaking Gun, that old old weapon. It was plugged into the continuing echoes of the Sound at the start of Creation, when God said Let there be light. The Speaking Gun knew the secret name of everything and everyone, and by Saying it backwards, could uncreate anything. Wipe it out completely, make it never happened ... An unstoppable weapon, that dreamed bloody dreams and lusted to be used.
Suzie Shooter looked slowly round the packed bar, and everyone looked back at her, not daring to move or make any sound that might attract her attention. Finally, her gaze fell on me. I wouldn't let myself flinch, or look away.
"I'd forgotten ... you used to look like this," she said, her voice cracked and harsh, as though it pained her to speak.
"Suze?" I said.
"No. Not any more. Not for a long time."
"Oh God, Suze; what have they done to you?"
"Nothing I didn't ask them to. I couldn't hope to survive in the world you made, John, so they remade me. Gave me this Gun, and stitched the two of us together, forever. The Speaking Gun is mad, and now so am I, but I'll last long enough to put you out of everyone else's misery. If there's anything human left in you, John... die now, and save the world. Resist me, and I'll blow this whole bar apart."
One of the combat magicians panicked then and threw a killing spell at her. The others immediately all joined in, and vicious magics flared and spattered all around Shotgun Suzie, but the Gun protected her. She turned on her attackers, and her face contorted, her mouth stretching impossibly wide, as the Gun spoke through her, Saying the Words of Undoing. It was the most terrible sound I'd ever heard. Everyone in the bar cried out, sickened and horrified. Even Lilith turned her face away, as Suzie Shooter spoke the Words and all the combat magicians disappeared in a moment, made unreal, uncreated.
People were falling to their knees and vomiting. Others turned and ran, up the metal stairway and out of the bar, their eyes wild and mad. Walker didn't try and stop them, but he wouldn't leave. Even now, he still had his pride and his duty. Suzie turned slowly back to look at me. I was shaking, my legs hardly strong enough to hold me up; but still I made myself face her, staring right into her cold gaze. I showed her my empty, unsteady hands.
"I won't fight you, Suze," I said. "I can't hurt you. I would never hurt you."
"But you did, John. You did."
Her mouth opened to Say the awful sounds that would uncreate me, unmake me; and then Merlin Satanspawn manifested through his descendent Alex Morrisey, and stopped Time with a gesture. Everything ground to a halt, turned to stone, unmoving, even to the flecks of dust on the air. I couldn't move, but I could sense what was going on. Could feel the Speaking Gun straining against the magic that was holding it back from what it lived to do. And Merlin Satanspawn came walking through the petrified world, dead but not gone, untouched by Time. He walked unhurriedly over to Shotgun Suzie, studied her for a moment, then ripped the Speaking Gun away from her upper arm. Flesh stretched and tore, and bright blood flew on the air. Suzie screamed as the energies that bound her to the Gun were shattered, and the Speaking Gun screamed, too, an awful hateful sound of frustrated rage and spite. Suzie snapped out, gone in a moment, banished back to the dreadful future I'd made for her and everyone else. The Speaking Gun disappeared, too, perhaps to that future, perhaps to somewhere else, where it was needed, or desired.
Time returned in a rush. Merlin and Lilith looked at each other, and everyone else held their breath. The Devil's only begotten son and God's first creation. And in the end Merlin bowed to Lilith, and disappeared, leaving Alex shaking and bewildered behind his bar again.
The remaining combat magicians opened up on Sinner and Pretty Poison again. After what had been done to them they needed to strike back at someone, and they weren't ready to take on Lilith yet. Especially after Merlin Satanspawn had bowed to her. Sinner still stood between them and Pretty Poison, his body soaking up the punishment of spells and cursed bullets. He was taking more and more damage now, being slowly chipped away; but he wouldn't step aside from the demon succubus he protected, and he wouldn't fight back. Everything else had been taken from him, but he still had his love and his determination to do the right thing. Behind him, Pretty Poison looked beseechingly at Walker, but he just looked back at her, his face calm and composed as always. He was here to do a distasteful, necessary thing, and he would see it through.
Sinner stood his ground, even though he knew the magics were destroying him by inches. He couldn't let the attacks get past him, to hurt Pretty Poison. Such potent magics could destroy the succubus's body, leave her without a human form to manifest in; she would be just another damned soul, suffering in Hell. He couldn't allow that. And so he stood, enduring the pain and the horror as his body was slowly whittled away, because she was his love. And nothing else mattered.
Bullets smacked into his side, chipping away at the exposed ribs, and he granted at the impact, but would not cry out, for fear it would distress his love. Spells burned the flesh from his bones and the skin from his face, tore at him with whips and razors, and every moment there was less and less of him. In the end, he knew he could be left without a body-just an orphaned spirit denied a place in either Heaven or Hell, a ghost slowly dissipating into nothing at all, as though he'd never been. He knew he could still save himself, could still run and abandon Pretty Poison to her fate. But having finally found love, he would rather die than see it destroyed.
Pretty Poison knew all this. Knew that Sinner's stubborn love for her would have him stand there for as long as his will could hold him up, and perhaps beyond. All to protect her. And in that moment, she knew she couldn't allow that. Couldn't allow the man who had suffered so much on her account to sacrifice everything for her. He mattered more than she. And so she stepped out from behind him, and stepped in front of him, to protect him with her body. Finally understanding the meaning of love, and self-sacrifice. Loving him as he loved her.
There was a blast of incandescent light, bright and glorious, as Pretty Poison remembered the angel she had once been, before the Fall. All her old evils were burned away, transfigured by the power of her love, and she became again the angel she had once been, fit to take her place in Heaven. She was too bright to look at, and we all turned our heads away, but we could still hear the slow, heavy beating of mighty wings.
"Come with me, to Paradise," said the angel to the man called Sinner. "For you have been found worthy, as have I."
The light flared up unbearably, then died away, and they were both gone.
It was very quiet in the bar then, as we all looked at each other, staggered by what we'd just witnessed. In the end, Walker recovered first. He gestured to his combat magicians, and they turned their gaze on me. Because if I could be destroyed, my mother would no longer have an anchor in this reality and could perhaps be driven out again. I straightened up as much as the knife in my back would allow and faced them all with a slow, cold smile. When there is nothing left but to die, die well.
And then Madman, perhaps inspired by the revelations he'd witnessed, came strolling out from behind the bar, and everyone turned to look at him. He laughed suddenly, and it was a rich, sane sound.
"When reality becomes unbearable," he said calmly, "change reality."
All his strength and power focussed through his will, and rushed out into the bar, enforcing his vision of reality on everything. All the remaining combat magicians cried out as their magics were stripped from them, leaving them defenceless. Walker staggered back, his Voice silenced. The knife in my back disappeared, along with the damage it had done. Madman turned his uncompromising gaze on Lilith, and she put up a hand as though to defend herself.
Not all of Madman's power, even focussed through his new-found will, could undo Lilith; but it did diminish her. She wavered, uncertain for the first time. Her power clashed with his, as he strove to drive her away, and she struggled to remain. For a long moment the stalemate held; and then I used the last of my power to find the door through which she'd entered Strangefellows, and pushed her back through it.
She disappeared, but her voice whispered a last message in my mind.
"I'll see you again, John. My son, in whom I am well pleased. We have such marvellous work ahead of us."
It was very quiet in the bar, after that. Lilith was gone, as were Merlin and Sinner and Pretty Poison. And poor Suzie Shooter, damned to the awful future I had made for her. Most of Walker's people were dead or gone, or stripped of their magics. Madman lay curled up on the floor in front of the bar, sleeping soundly. Walker strolled over to look down at him.
"It's always the ones you overlook who turn out to be the most bother," he said mildly. "I wonder what he'll be like, when he wakes up?"
"Sane, hopefully," I said. "I think that last effort used up all of his power, and his madness. Maybe now he'll be able to forget what he Saw and live in the same reality as the rest of us."
"You always were an optimist, John," said Walker. "I'm not allowed that luxury." He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes very cold. "You no longer have any friends in the Nightside. You are a danger to everyone and to everything here. We are all your enemies now."
"You don't know the half of it," I said.
Walker nodded slowly, then tipped his bowler hat to me, gathered up his remaining people with his eyes, and led them back up the metal stairway and out of the bar. They took Pew's body with them. Alex came out from behind his bar to blow a rude noise after them and look mournfully round at the scattered wreckage of his chairs and tables. He sighed heavily.
"I'll have to call the Coltranes back to clear this mess up. And I hate having to pay after-hours triple time. What are you going to do now, John?"
"I am going to the Tower of Time," I said. "I'm going back in Time, to search through the earlier incarnations of the Nightside, and dig up people or Beings or Forces who can tell me what I need to know. How to stop my mother Lilith. Because I will use any weapon, any knowledge, to prevent the future she intends to bring about."
Alex sniffed, unconvinced. "Do you think what we saw was really Suzie?"
"Some possible future version, perhaps. But I'll never let that happen to her. I won't let her be hurt by anyone. Even me."
"At least now we know who your mother really is," said Alex. "Lilith. Who would have thought it?"
"She's not my mother," I said. "She was never my mother."