Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth (23 page)

"Oh good," said Tommy. "For a minute there, I was almost worried."

I took out my Membership Card, activated it, then almost dropped the bloody thing as Lilith's face looked out of the Card at me.

"Hello, John," she said. "My sweet boy. My own dear flesh and blood. I haven't forgotten you. I'll come for you soon, then you'll be mine, body and soul, forever and ever and ever."

I shut down the Card, and her face disappeared. I was breathing hard, as though I'd just been hit. Suzie and Tommy were looking at me, and I realised they hadn't heard a thing.

"Bad news," I said. "We're going to have to do this the hard way."

Eleven

Truth and Consequences

I
stripped off my trench coat and gingerly inspected my injured arm. Dominic Flipside really had sliced it open from wrist to elbow, and blood was coursing down my arm. It hurt a lot more once I saw how bad it was. It also showed absolutely no signs of healing on its own. Suzie bandaged my arm with practised skill, brisk efficiency, and a bedside manner that bordered on distressing. She kept her gloves on the whole time. I would have liked to make a lot of noise, or at least indulged in some impassioned cursing, but somehow I couldn't when Tommy Oblivion's wounds were so much worse, and he wasn't making a sound. Suzie tied off both ends of my bandaged arm, and I flexed it carefully.

"You'll need stitches later," said Suzie.

"That's right, cheer me up." I glanced at Dominic's body. "Trust a sneak assassin like him to use a blade with a silver edge. It's lucky you were carrying bandages, Suzie."

"Lucky, hell. I always carry a full med kit. Tools of the trade, when you're in the bounty-hunting business. Even though the powers that be won't let me claim them as a business expense, the bastards."

I put my trench coat back on. The slit sleeve flapped loosely around my injured arm. "I suppose," I said thoughtfully, "they won't let you claim because the med kit could be used by you, or your victims."

"Don't be silly, John. You know I always bring them in dead. Less paperwork that way."

We looked over at Tommy Oblivion, who was still sitting with his back propped against the wall of St. Jude's. Suzie had pushed his guts back into place, then wrapped his stomach with half a mile of bandages, but they were already soaked through with fresh blood. Tommy's face was grey and beaded with sweat. His eyes were wide and staring, and his mouth trembled. There was no way in Hell he was going to be able to concentrate hard enough or long enough to heal himself.

"We have to get him back to Strangefellows," Suzie said quietly. "And fast."

"I can't use my Membership Card, or his," I said, just as quietly. "Lilith has found a way to hack into it. She's closing in on me, Suzie, and I can't afford to be found."

Suzie looked out over the wasteland of ash and dust. Strange lights flared briefly on the horizon. "We're a long way from the bar, John. A long way from anywhere civilised. Tommy won't make it if we have to travel through the war zones on foot. Hell, I'm not even that sure we'll make it. Things are bad out there… How about if we go into St. Jude's, and pray for a miracle?"

"How about you go in?" I said. "Tommy and I will watch. From a safe distance. St. Jude's has a famously zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sinners."

"Could you two please keep the noise down?" Tommy said hoarsely. "I'm dying here, and I have a headache."

"He's delirious," said Suzie.

"I wish," said Tommy.

Suzie leaned in close to me, her mouth right next to my ear. "It might be kinder to kill him here, John. Rather than let him die by inches, dragging him through the war zones. His screaming would be bound to attract attention. I could do it. I'd be very humane. He wouldn't feel a thing."

"No," I said. "I won't let him down. I won't let him die. He saved my life. He crawled twenty feet in the dirt with half a dozen bullets in his gut to set fire to that rogue anima. Bravest thing I've ever seen. I wasn't the hero he wanted me to be, on our trip into the Past. But he was a hero for me."

I remembered Larry Oblivion's words, from the pitiful last redoubt of my Enemies in the future. He trusted you, even though he had good reason not to. And when they struck him down you just stood there, and watched him die, and did nothing to help.

I looked at Suzie. "How did you get here?"

"Razor Eddie cut a door in the air with his razor, opening up a breach between there and here. All I had to do was step through."

Suzie fixed me with her cold, unwavering gaze. "You want to save him, there's only one thing left. Use your gift, John. Find us a way back to the bar."

"Using my gift is like using the Card," I said reluctantly. "It's another way for Lilith to find me. If I keep pushing my luck, it's bound to run out. But… right now, I'd have to say Tommy's chances are much worse than mine. So."

I fired up my gift, concentrating as hard as I knew how on finding a way out of this mess. Not for me, but for my friends. Because they both came through for me, when I needed them. I pushed hard, gritting my teeth until my jaw ached. Sweat rolled down my face. I could feel some chance, some possibility, close at hand. Something we'd all overlooked. I concentrated till my head ached, a vicious pounding beat of pain, forcing my inner eye, my private eye, to focus in on what I needed. And finally my Sight showed me a door, or at least the essence of a door, hanging before me. It was the opening Razor Eddie had made, with his godly will and his awful straight razor. The door had closed behind Suzie when Eddie stopped thinking about it, but the rift he'd made was still there, if only potentially. I felt my lips pull back in a death's-head grin that was as much a snarl as anything else. I was back in the game again. I sensed Suzie moving in to stand very close to me, comforting me with her presence, but I couldn't see or hear her.

I hit the potential door with every bit of willpower I had, all my muscles locked solid from the strain, my stomach clenching so painfully I almost cried out; and slowly, inch by inch and moment by moment, the door grew more real and more definite. Sweat was pouring off me now, my whole body aching from the tension, and my head felt like it would fly apart at any moment. Blood poured from my nose and ears, and even oozed up from under my eyelids. I was doing myself some serious damage, pushing my gift harder than I ever had before. My breathing came harsh and rapid, my heart hammered in my chest, and my vision narrowed till all I could see was the door, as real to me as I was, because I made it so. I couldn't feel my hands. Couldn't feel my wounded arm. A terrible chill spread through me. I fell to my knees, and didn't even feel the impact. I could sense Suzie kneeling beside me, yelling my name, but even that was faint and far away.

The door swung open, and I cried out, a harsh rasping cry of victory. The door hung on the air before us, an opening, a window through space itself. I shut down my gift, and the door remained. I'd broken it to my will. Sight and sound and sensation returned in a rush. Suzie was kneeling beside me, shaking my shoulder with her gloved hand and yelling right into my ear. I slowly turned my head and grinned at her, blood spilling out over my lips, and said something indistinct. She saw I was back and stopped shouting. She produced a surprisingly clean handkerchief from inside her leather jacket and wiped the blood and sweat and tears from my face. When I was ready, she helped me up onto my feet again.

Through the gap in the air I could see right into Strangefellows. Walker and Alex Morrisey were looking back through the gap, their faces slack with almost comic expressions of surprise. I waved cheerfully at them, and they both recovered quickly. Suzie started to help me towards the door.

"No," I made myself say. "Tommy first. I'll heal. He won't."

She nodded and let go of me. I swayed a little, but stayed upright. Suzie picked Tommy up in her arms as though he was a child, and carried him towards the door. He cried out once at the sudden new pain, but that was it. Tough little guy, for an effete existentialist. Suzie took him through the opening into the bar, then came back for me. I walked through the door under my own steam, but it was a near thing. I'd pushed myself too hard this time, and I had a strong feeling I'd have to pay for it, later. I might have werewolf blood in me, but God alone knew how diluted it was, having passed through Belle and Suzie on its way to me. Suzie stuck close to my side, ready to catch me if I fell.

Is there a better definition of love?

We came home to Strangefellows, and I felt the door close very firmly behind me. Alex already had Tommy Oblivion laid out on a table-top, while Betty and Lucy Coltrane hurried to get Alex the repair spells he needed. Tommy's breathing didn't sound at all good. I started to go to him, but I was suddenly hot and cold at the same time, and the bar swayed around me. Suzie lowered me onto a chair, and I collapsed gratefully. I checked myself out as best I could. I didn't seem to be bleeding from anywhere any more, and feeling was flooding back into all parts of my body. It hurt like hell. Suzie snapped her fingers imperiously for some clean water and a cloth, and set about cleaning the last of the mess off my face. The cool water felt good on my skin, and my head settled down again.

Razor Eddie stood before me, an intense grey presence in his filthy overcoat, regarding me thoughtfully with his fever-bright eyes. He was holding a bottle of Perrier water. Flies buzzed around him, and up close the smell was really bad.

"You reopened a door I made," he said finally, in his quiet, ghostly voice. "I didn't know you could do that. I didn't think anyone could do that."

"Yeah, well," I said, as casually as I could, "nothing like having your mother around to inspire you to new heights."

Walker brought me a glass of wormwood brandy. I'd actually have preferred a nice ice-cold Coke, but I appreciated the thought. I nodded my thanks to him, and he nodded back. Which was about as demonstrative as we were ever likely to get. It did seem we were becoming closer, whether we liked it or not. Suzie stopped dabbing at my face with her damp cloth, inspected her work critically, then nodded and tossed the bloody cloth aside. She sat down on the edge of a table facing me, and concentrated on cleaning her double-barrelled shotgun.

At another table, not too far away, Tommy Oblivion thrashed about while Alex did necessary, painful things to him. Betty and Lucy Coltrane held Tommy down, using all their considerable strength, while Tommy used the kind of language you didn't expect to hear from effete existentialists. Alex's remedies tended to be swift, brutal, but effective. He chanted something alliterative in Old Saxon, while pouring a thick blue gunk into Tommy's exposed guts, while Dead Boy peered over his shoulder, watching interestedly.

"I could lend you some duct tape, if you like," he said. "I've always found duct tape very useful."

"Get the hell away from my patient, you heathen," said Alex, not looking up from what he was doing. "Or I'll use this superglue to seal your mouth up."

"Superglue?" gasped Tommy. "You're putting me back together with superglue? I demand a second opinion!"

"All right, you're a noisy bugger, too," said Alex. "Now shut the hell up and let me concentrate. Superglue was good enough for the grunts in Vietnam. It's not like you needed all that lower intestine anyway… There. That's it. Give the glue a few minutes to bond with the spells, then you can sit up. I've got the bullets here. Do you want to keep them for souvenirs?"

Tommy told Alex exactly where he could stick the bullets, and everyone managed some kind of smile. I looked around me, studying the small crowd gathered in the bar. My only remaining allies in the struggle to stop Lilith. It really was a very small crowd. I looked at Walker, who shrugged. He'd got his equilibrium back, but he still looked very tired.

"All my other agents are either out in the field, doing what they can, or they're missing, presumed dead. What you see… is all that's left."

There was Alex Morrisey, cleaning his bloody hands on a grubby bar cloth, all in black as usual, in perpetual mourning for the way his life might have gone, if only he hadn't been Alex Morrisey. He glowered at me, and said something about the mess I'd made of his place, but I could tell his heart wasn't really in it. Tommy Oblivion was already sitting up on his table-top, ruefully inspecting the tattered and bloodied remains of his ruffled shirt. He nodded almost cheerfully to me and gave me a thumbs-up. Betty and Lucy Coltrane had chosen chairs from where they could keep a watchful overview of the bar, ready to deal with any and all intruders. They looked muscular as ever, but there were deep black smudges of fatigue under their eyes.

Dead Boy struck a casual pose in his flapping purple greatcoat, while Ms. Fate struck an heroic pose in his leather superhero outfit, mask, and cape. Standing proudly at his side was my teenage secretary, Cathy Barrett, in an oversized black leather jacket covered in badges. I stopped and looked at her closely.

"Cathy… why are you wearing a black domino mask?"

"Ms. Fate made me his sidekick!" Cathy said cheerfully. "I thought I'd call myself Deathfang the Avenger, or maybe…"

I shut my eyes, just for a moment. Teenagers…

Razor Eddie was standing a little off to one side, as he always did. Eddie wasn't a people person. Mien Advent was nursing a glass of champagne and smoking a long black cheroot. As always, he was every inch the elegant Victorian, but his opera cloak was torn and tattered and even burned through in places. Of us all he looked the most like a real hero, tall and brave and unbending. Because he was. Larry Oblivion, in a soiled and battered Gucci suit, stood supportively beside his brother, and nodded briefly when my gaze landed on him.

"You saved my brother's life," he said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said.

I hadn't let Tommy die. The thought warmed me. I'd finally broken one clear link between my present and the devastated future, and it felt good, so good. And then I felt guilty, for caring more about that than for saving the man who'd risked his life to save mine. I do try to be a good man, but my life gets so damned complicated, sometimes…