Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth (22 page)

"It's all right, Tommy," I said, trying to hide the fact that internally I was hyperventilating. "I know who they are. They're bounty hunters. How did you find me here, Sandra?"

"I can get answers from the dead, remember?" She was still smiling, not at all pleasantly. "And there are a lot of dead up and about just at the moment. The dead know many things that are hidden from the living. They have… an overview. And I can get them to tell me anything."

"Yes," I said. "And I know how. It's one thing to love the dead, but you take it far too literally. You coffin chaser, you."

"Am I understanding this correctly?" said Tommy. "You mean she actually…"

"Oh yes," I said.

"Now that's just tacky. I can't believe I shared a picnic with her."

"Shut up, Tommy," said Sandra, not taking her eyes off me.

"In case you hadn't noticed, there is a War going on," I said. "This really isn't the time…"

"There's always a war going on somewhere in the Nightside," said Sandra. "You should know—you've started your fair share of them. My associates and I have decided that we don't care. We want the reward on your head. It's a really big reward; one of the biggest bounties ever posted in the Nightside. The very well connected families of the thirteen Reasonable Men you slaughtered want you dead, John, and they don't care how much it costs them. There's enough money on the table to buy all of us a way out of the Nightside and into some distant dimension where even Lilith can't reach. And still leave enough cold cash for all of us to live like royalty, in our new home. So, revenge, escape, and all our dreams come true. In return for your head, preferably no longer connected to your body. See how neatly it all works out?"

"I thought you said you owed me," I said carefully. "For saving your life in the Necropolis graveyard?"

"Whatever small debt I may have owed you, I more than paid it off being a good soldier for Walker and defending the Nightside during your absence. I want you dead, John. I can't even breathe easily while you're still among the living. You murdered my sweet Saint of Suffering, my beloved Lamentation. You have to pay for that. I put together this little band of bounty hunters, some of the very best in the business, just so I could be sure you wouldn't dodge your death this time. Try your little bag of tricks against professionals, Taylor, and see where it gets you."

She had a point. I considered the dozen or so bounty hunters fanned out in a wide semicircle before me, covering all the possible escape routes. Most were vaguely familiar faces, and three of them were actually famous, almost in a class with Suzie Shooter herself. At least she wasn't here. Then I really would have been in trouble. The tall scarecrow figure in Sally Army cast-offs was Dominic Flipside, a short-range teleporter. Frighteningly quick and sneaky, you never knew from which direction he'd come at you next. Whispering Ivy was a rogue anima from Wales, made up entirely from flowers and thorns, an ever-shifting montage of natural forms in the vague shape of a woman. When she moved, it sounded like the whispering of owls. And Cold Harald, dressed as always in the starkest black and white, with a mind like a calculating machine. He always worked the odds, his logic unclouded by any trace of emotion or humanity. He held a machine pistol in each hand and looked like he knew how to use them. Any one of these three would have worried me, but all of them together… and Sandra Chance… I thought about running back into the church and screaming for sanctuary, but I knew I'd never make the second step.

"Don't even think about the church," said Sandra. "Or we'll shoot your friend."

Tommy looked at her, hurt. "After we worked together, such a short time ago? Have you no shame? You wound me, madam."

"If you don't shut up, I'll wound you somewhere really painful," said Sandra. "It's up to you, Taylor. Surrender, and we'll make it quick. You can go out with some dignity, at least. Make us work for your head, and we'll all take turns expressing our displeasure on your helpless body."

"Come and take it," I said. "If you can."

"I was hoping you'd say that," said Sandra Chance. "Remember, people, do what you like to the body but don't damage the head. Our patrons won't pay up unless the face is unquestionably his. I think they want to take turns pissing on it. Otherwise, anything goes."

Tommy Oblivion stepped forwards. He'd always been a lot braver than people gave him credit for. His gift manifested very subtly on the air, making his words seem the very epitome of reasonableness and good sense.

"Come," he said warmly, his arms reaching out to embrace everyone. "Let us reason together…"

"Let's not," said Cold Harald, in his flat, clipped voice, and he shot Tommy half a dozen times in the stomach. Tommy staggered back under the impact, slamming up against the church wall, then slid slowly down it until he was sitting on the ground. The whole bottom half of his ruffled shirt was slick with blood.

"Oh dear," he said quietly. "Oh dear." He bit his lip against the pain, and I could see him trying to concentrate, trying to raise his gift, so he could find a possibility where the bullets hadn't hit him. But his face was already white and beaded with sweat, his breathing hurried and shallow. I could feel his gift sparking on and off, but pain and stress were getting in the way of his concentration.

I couldn't expect any help from him. I was on my own.

I palmed an incendiary from out of my sleeve and tossed it into the midst of the advancing bounty hunters. Fire and smoke exploded noisily, and two of the bounty hunters fell broken and bleeding to the ground. The rest scattered. Dominic Flipside giggled, a long knife suddenly in each hand, then he disappeared, air rushing in to fill the space where he'd been. I felt as much as heard him reappear almost immediately behind me, and spun round, one arm raised. He cut me open from wrist to elbow, and disappeared again. Blood soaked the length of my coat sleeve.

Cold Harald stepped forward, raising both machine pistols to target me. Dominic Flipside was already gone. I fired up my gift, used it to find where he'd reappear, and stepped forward to meet Cold Harald. He hesitated, expecting some trick, some magic. Dominic Flipside appeared behind me, and lunged silently forward with his long knife. I stepped aside at the last moment, and Dominic plunged on to stab Cold Harald through the heart. His fingers tightened on the triggers of his machine pistols, and blew a dozen holes through Dominic Flipside. Both of them were dead before they hit the ground.

There was a rustling of plants, and the murmuring of dreaming owls, as Whispering Ivy stretched out a hand made of petals and thorns. She sprouted fierce tendrils of barbed greenery, her shifting shape rising up and towering over me, then she stopped abruptly. There was the sound of crackling flames, the smell of smoke. She looked back, turning her flowery head impossibly far round. While she was fixed on me, Tommy had crawled around behind her and set fire to her with his monogrammed gold lighter. Whispering Ivy shrieked as the flames shot up incredibly fast, consuming her construct body, and she ran off across the open ashy plain, howling shrilly, a shrinking flickering light in the gloom.

I looked at the remaining bounty hunters. They were all frozen in place, horrified at how quickly I'd taken out their star players. They all looked at Sandra Chance, to see what she would do. To her credit, she'd already thrown off any surprise or shock she might have felt, and had drawn the old-fashioned pistol from its holster. It was an ugly, mean gun, built with function in mind, not aesthetics. The metal was blue-black, the barrel unfashionably long. It looked like what it was—a killing tool.

"This is an enchanted pistol," Sandra Chance said steadily. "It never misses. It belonged originally to the famed Western duellist, Dead Eye Dick, renowned hero of dime novels and at least one song. I dug up his grave and broke open his coffin to get this gun. I had to break his fingers to make him let go of it. I'd been saving it for a special occasion. You should feel honoured, John."

"People keep telling me that," I said.

She pulled the trigger while I was still speaking, and shot me three times in the chest. It was like being kicked by a horse, an impact so great it knocked all the breath out of my lungs and sent me stumbling backwards. The pain was remarkably focused; I could feel each separate bullet hole. There was a roaring in my head, and I still couldn't breathe. I bent forward over the pain, as though bowing to my killer, to the inevitable, and then, suddenly, I could breathe again. I sucked in a great lungful of air, and it had never tasted so good. My head cleared, and the pains faded away to nothing. I straightened up slowly, not quite trusting what I was feeling, and pulled open my bullet-holed trench coat to look underneath. There were three more holes in my shirt, but only a little blood. I put my fingers through the holes in my shirt, and found only unbroken skin. I felt great. I looked at Sandra Chance, and she stared blankly back at me, open-mouthed.

"Honest," I said. "I'm just as surprised as you are. But I think I know what's happened. I once put werewolf blood into Suzie Shooter, to save her from a mortal wound. And later she put her blood into me, for the same reason. So it seems I have acquired a werewolf's healing abilities. The blood's probably too diluted to do anything else to me, but…"

"It's not fair," said Sandra. "You bastard, Taylor! You always have a way out."

I had a feeling silver bullets might still get the job done, but I didn't think I'd mention that to Sandra. I turned to the other bounty hunters, who were still as statues, watching with gaping mouths, and gave them my best nasty smile. Five seconds later all I could see was their backs, heading for the nearest horizon. They knew when they were outclassed. I turned back to Sandra Chance, and she shot me in the head. The impact whipped my head round, and for a moment it seemed like all the bells in the world were ringing inside my skull. I then felt the weirdest sensation, as the bullet crept slowly back out of my brain, the hole healing behind it, until it popped out my forehead and dropped to the ground. The bone healed with only the faintest of cracking sounds, and that was that.

I smiled at Sandra. "Ouch," I said, just to be sporting.

She stamped her foot. "Don't you ever play by the rules?"

"Not if I can help it," I said.

We stood and looked at each other for a long moment. Sandra lowered her gun but didn't put it away. I knew she was considering the possibilities of a bullet to a soft target, like an eye or my groin.

"We don't have to do this," I said. "All this kill or be killed bullshit. I don't want to kill you, Sandra. There's been enough death in the Nightside."

"I have to kill you, John," said Sandra, almost tiredly. "You murdered the only thing I ever loved."

"The Lamentation isn't actually dead," I said. "I only returned it to its original human components."

"They weren't the Lamentation," said Sandra. "They weren't what I loved. So I killed them. And now I have to kill you."

"I never understood what you saw in it," I said carefully. "Even allowing for your well-known death fetish, and your preference for… cold meat. You must know the Lamentation didn't love you. It couldn't, by its nature."

"I knew that! Of course I knew that! It was enough… that I loved it. The only creature something like me could ever love. It made me happy. I'd never been happy before. I'll kill you for taking that away from me."

"I won't kill you, Sandra," I said. "And you can't kill me. Forget this shit. We've got a War to fight."

"I don't care," she said. "Let it all burn. Let them all die. That's the world I live in anyway. I'll find you, and I'll kill you, John. There's always a way. Wherever you go, I'll be there in the shadows, hunting you. And one day I'll step out of a door or an alleyway and kill you dead, when you're least expecting it. I'll watch you choke on your own blood and laugh in your face as you die."

"No you won't," said Suzie Shooter.

We both spun round, startled, and the roar of the shotgun was like thunder. Sandra Chance took both barrels in the chest, at close range. The blast tore half her upper torso away, and she was dead long before she hit the ground. Suzie nodded calmly, lowered the double-barrelled shotgun, and reloaded it from her bandoliers, and only then looked at me.

"Blessed and cursed ammo. If one barrel doesn't get you, the other will. Hello, John."

"Thank you, Suzie," I said. There was nothing else I could say. She wouldn't have understood. "How did you know to find me here?"

Suzie nodded at Sandra's sprawled body. "She was dumb enough to approach me when she was putting her little army together. She thought the sheer size of the bounty would sway me. I won't say I wasn't tempted, but I like to think I've moved beyond that, where you're concerned. So I came here. I thought you might need some backup."

"I had the situation under control," I said. "You didn't have to kill her."

"Yes I did," said Suzie. "You heard her. She'd never give up. That's why you'll always need me around, John. To do the necessary things you're too soft to do."

"That's not why I keep you around," I said.

"I know," said Suzie Shooter. "My love."

She extended a leather-gloved hand to me, and I held it lightly in mine, for a moment.

"Excuse me for butting in on such a tender scene," said Tommy Oblivion, "But I do happen to by dying here. I would appreciate a helping hand."

He was lying on his side on the ground, both hands at his stomach, as though trying to hold it together. Suzie knelt beside him, pushed his hands aside, and checked the extent of the damage with experienced eyes.

"Gut shot. Nasty. If the bullets don't kill him, infection will. We need to get him out of here, John."

"I can't use my gift," said Tommy. His voice was clear enough, but his eyes were vague. "Can't concentrate through the pain. But I absolutely refuse to die in such a drab and depressing location as this."

"Don't worry," I said. "I'll take us back to Strangefellows through my Membership Card, and Alex will fix you up. You can put it on my tab."