“I’ve lost track of how many months that damned bird has been pregnant,” he said bitterly as he poured me my usual wormwood brandy and handed Suzie her bottle of Gordon’s Gin. “Has to be well over a year now. I think she’s going for the record. Still no idea what the hell she mated with, but it must have been something really brave. Wouldn’t surprise me if she ate him afterwards. Or even during. I’m hoping it wasn’t a phoenix. You can’t get good fire insurance in the Nightside.”
“That’s always been one of the big riddles,” I said. “If the phoenix is always born from the ashes of the previous phoenix, then who fired the first phoenix?”
Suzie stopped sucking at her gin bottle long enough to say “Prometheus,” unexpectedly.
Alex and I looked at her, then at each other, and shrugged pretty much in unison.
“What are you doing here, John?” said Alex. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d decided you were too good for us, now you’re off hobnobbing with the aristocracy. It’ll all end in tears. The London Knights ... Give me a slippery floor and a can-opener, and I could take the lot of them.”
“Pretty sure you couldn’t,” I said. “I’ve seen them fight. To be exact, I saw them take on a whole army of elves and make chutney out of them. And since they’re currently a bit annoyed with me ...”
“He lost Excalibur,” said Suzie.
“I’m getting it back!” I said quickly. “I’m here to use my gift, while you and Suzie run interference and keep the flies off. I can’t afford to be interrupted once I start concentrating.”
“All right,” said Suzie, setting down her half-empty bottle. “Anyone bothers us, I’ll shoot them quietly.”
“I’ll get a bucket and mop,” Alex said resignedly.
“Don’t pop off yet,” I said. “I need to discuss something with you.”
“Let’s start with your bar bill,” said Alex.
“You know I’m good for it. Listen, remember the ... object I left here with you after the Angel War? The thing I asked you to hide for me? And never mention to anyone?”
Alex lowered his sunglasses and studied me over them. “Are things really that serious?”
“Could be,” I said. “I have a strong feeling things could get extremely unpleasant, then a whole lot worse, before they even look like getting better.”
“Situation entirely bloody normal round here,” said Alex. “Hang on while I get my special gloves.”
He reached under the counter and pulled out a pair of woollen mittens, specially knitted for him by the Holy Sisters of Saint Strontium. Guaranteed to protect his hands from anything up to and including the Holy Sisters. Alex went to the back of the bar and very carefully brought down a slender bottle labelled ANGEL’S TEARS, in Alex’s own appalling handwriting. He set the bottle down gently on the bar before us and the liquor inside swelled slowly from side to side, shining with delicate silver light. Angel’s Tears was a particularly vicious and brutal liquor that could not only open the doors of perception inside your mind, but blow the doors right off their hinges. Alex could only keep the liquor in stock for so long, then he had to take it out, bury it in unconsecrated ground, and run like hell. Alex broke the heavy wax seal with extreme care and reached inside the bottle with a pair of delicate silver tongs. And from out of the concealing liquor, he pulled a single long feather.
It glowed faintly with its own light, a pure white feather of indescribable beauty and grace. It looked like the first, original feather, which all other feathers are based on. Alex laid it gently out on the bar counter, then put the bottle away. The feather lay there, utterly perfect, with not a drop of liquor on it. The Angel’s Tears had disguised its presence all this time but hadn’t been able to touch it. Because the feather was the real deal.
“Is that what I think it is?” said Suzie, after a moment.
“Yes,” I said. “A feather from an angel’s wing. I found a downed angel during the War. Brought down by really serious magics, with its wings ripped off and propped up on bricks. So to speak. I found the feather some distance away, in the gutter, and took it away with me. Because I always thought the time would arrive when it would come in handy.”
“All right, it’s very pretty,” Suzie said grudgingly. “But what use is it? What can you do with it, apart from tickle someone to death?”
“According to the reading I’ve done on the subject, an angel’s feather can protect you from spiritual corruption,” I said. “And given that we’re almost certainly going to be dealing with Sinister Albion ...”
“You mean the living Merlin?” said Alex, up to the minute on news as usual and determined not to be left out of the conversation. “Merlin Satanspawn, more powerful than the Merlin we knew and nastier with it? Word is he’s here in the Nightside right now, looking for his missing King Artur.”
“Not just the living Merlin,” I said. “According to the London Knights, we also have to worry about one Prince Gaylord the Damned, Nuncio to the Court of King Artur. He’s here, too.”
“What’s so special about him?” said Suzie.
“I don’t know,” I said. “No-one knows. That’s what’s so worrying.”
“But ... it’s only a feather,” said Suzie.
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “It looks like a feather to our limited human senses because the reality of it is far too big for us to deal with. This came from a messenger of God, His will made manifest in the material world. It’s no more only a feather than an angel is just some guy with wings.”
“First Excalibur, then the London Knights, now an angel’s feather,” said Alex. “Going up in the world, John. Been a long time since anything so obviously good came into the Nightside ... We could probably get good money for this. And I mean serious money ...”
I picked the feather up and tucked it into my inside coat-pocket. My fingers tingled at the brief contact. “There are some things money can’t buy, Alex.”
“I know. That’s what credit is for.”
“What are you going to do with the feather, John?” said Suzie.
“Hang on to it,” I said. “And hope some of its essential goodness rubs off on me.”
“Good luck with that,” said Suzie. “Also, Alex, my bottle is empty.”
“Lot of people are talking about Excalibur,” said Alex as he handed Suzie a fresh bottle. “Mostly trying to figure out how the hell it ended up with you, John.”
“I am not worthy,” I said solemnly. “But, I have a special dispensation.”
Alex paused, thoughtfully. “When I was younger, and still believed I was descended from Arthur Pendragon, instead of Merlin Satanspawn, I used to dream of wielding Excalibur. What did it feel like?”
“Like I could do anything,” I said.
And that was when lightning slammed down into the bar. Huge jagged bolts of blue-white electricity, jumping from ceiling to floor to every metal object in the bar. Sparks jumped and exploded, crackling loudly on the air. I could feel the wild energies tingling on my bare skin, and my hair stood up. The air stank of ozone. The lightning slammed down again and again, filling the bar with brutal, merciless light. Tables and chairs caught fire. The floor suddenly cracked apart, a long, jagged line that ran from one end of the bar to the other, the crack widening and splintering as it tore itself apart. Everyone in the bar was running for the exit. Some were on fire. There was screaming and shouting and all the sounds of pain and horror. I put my back to the bar, and Suzie was right there at my side, shotgun at the ready.
The crack in the floor widened further still, becoming a crevice full of darkness. And up out of that bottomless darkness rose a huge iron throne, its heavy black metal carved and scarred with crawling unquiet runes. And sitting at his ease on that cold iron throne—Merlin Satanspawn of Sinister Albion. The greatest living sorcerer of a realm where evil had triumphed. He smiled on me as the throne came to a halt, hovering over the abyss; and it was not a human smile.